Patrick Thomas

Patrick is our little miracle baby. He has had more blood tests done in his short 3 months of life than I remember having in all of my life. I think we're up to 12 now. He had a common problem among babies, jaundice. This problem is common on the 3rd and 4th days of the life of a baby, but most babies recover without a problem. Patrick was treated in the hospital multiple times, but just couldn't seem to kick it. We took him in to a good pediatric when he was like 7 weeks old. She said if he was still yellow at 8 weeks then he needed to get blood work done again. The results came back poor and she said it was probably because he had a liver disease. With some more testings done she sent us to a specialist in Santiago, a children's gastroenterologist. We had to fly to Santiago to see this dr. and so we were able to accomplish a lot of north during our visit. We met with a U.S. embassy officer, and were approved for Patrick's birth certificate and passport. The hospital where we took him might be the nicest hospital in Chile. It was impressive; by far the nicest hospital I've ever been in. The doctor looked at Patrick and said that he was a very healthy baby (by this time the yellow had dissipated), and said that he believed that blood tests were adulterated. He sent for us to get more blood work done. Once the test results were in, and he was able to check them online we communicated through email and he said, "Don't worry, your baby is 100% healthy."

As I look back I can see God's hand at work in so many ways. The biggest and most obvious is the miracle of Patrick being healed. There is no way that it was an error in the exams because he was as yellow as a "zapallo" as they say here in Chile (a zapallo is like a monstrous pumpkin that's very yellow on the inside). Praise be to God for his healing. Another little detail that was special was that the hospital was costly; we had to pay to see the doctor and pay to get blood work done. Two churches invited me to preach for them during our stay in Santiago. One of them gave us a love offering and it was about the same as the cost of seeing the specialist. Also at the blood work counter the lady told me the price and when I asked for a discount she took $60 off the price! Ye have not, because ye ask not!

A few of my favorite pictures of Patrick