Chris and Lynne Strange Serving the Lord in the Philippines Chris has a new face. Maybe it would be better to say; “Chris had a facial peel!”
Our last few days in the tribe was spent getting the house in order for our furlough. That means going through the stuff that can’t be used by our friends and will go bad before our return next May. Our normal way of disposal is to burn it: old books that will attract termites, half used anything, food and spices that cannot be used by others, things we would burn anyway… you get the picture! We are very careful with what goes into the fire pit because it can be very dangerous to burn some of this stuff! So many of our friends in the tribe and out in town have been badly burned and one lost his vision.
Last Friday, that danger became another experience for us! We had worked all day doing just this sort of ‘inventory’ and Chris went to burn for the day as I showered off the sweat of the day. My head was full of shampoo bubbles when I heard “BOOM!” so loudly a tiny scream escaped from me! I ducked out from behind the shower curtain to look out toward the jungle to see who was shooting so close to our house. I didn’t see anything so went back into the shower to get rid of the bubbles.
Seconds later, Chris poked his head into the curtain and said with a shaky voice, “Something blew up from the trash into my face.”
He was a frightening sight! Black ash was stuck all over his hand, arm and face and the smell of burned hair filled the room. Immediately I turned the shower onto his head and arm. We only have cold water in our house, so I was taken aback when the water that hit my hand holding his head was HOT from the heat as it ran off his skin. Slowly the ash washed off his skin to reveal bright red burns.
We patted the skin dry and assessed it to be like a very bad sunburn and we prayed for wisdom from above. We knew it was too late to get the plane in for the day and also that the weekend was full on for the pilot with no flights being scheduled because of an activity with his mission (we are using SIL pilots until next month). We felt at perfect peace to stay put until our regularly scheduled flight on the next Friday.
Until Monday, that is. Then the Lord really took the peace away and Chris’ appearance changed hourly. Giant blisters formed on his hand, arm and ear. Skin dropped off with every bath and sometimes just would split and peel back on its own. By Monday afternoon he was feeling sick so we made the call for an emergency flight the next morning.
It’s now Friday here. He has been in and out of the hospital where he received excellent treatment from our doctor friends (who couldn’t help but tease him a bit that he is back in the ER). Today, most of the blackened skin is gone and the blistered areas healing!
We praise the Lord that his eyesight was spared. We know God must have shut his eyes just in time as the flame went right across both eyes and singed the eyebrows and lashes. We know God knew this was yet another medical issue where we would lean upon His strength. We know we are loved and prayed for by so many!
We DON’T know what exploded. We don’t remember putting anything in the burn bag that would have done that. We are thinking that something fell in by accident or was inside something we tossed into the bag that we didn’t realize was in there.
We are full of praise and thankfulness to God for the outcome.
And he does look cute with the brand new skin!
Peeled and pink!
!