Hospital update on Jury...

Last Friday I spent seven hours at the hospital waiting on a surgery for our young friend Jury.  He was taken to the hospital with a ruptured appendix and they left him waiting for three hours before they attempted to remove it.  Apparently it was between shifts and some of the doctors customarily have a few drinks there at the hospital before they return home.   Jury is a handsome 18 year old and one of our orphans who live in the discipleship house.  Orphans are not a priority on basically anyone's list here and certainly unable to pay any bribes.  The surgery that night was terrible and it looked like he would not survive.  The next day they tried another surgery and left a huge hole.  It still was not successful.    I arrived at the hospital for the third surgery which was scheduled for 10 am.  Three hours later a doctor showed up and told us they were waiting for the arrangements- meaning who is going to pay the bribe for this surgery before they would go ahead?  We refused to pay any bribe, as we always have, but talked about who these doctors report to.  We have many friends in this City and so the conversation stopped there.   We stayed another five hours and when Jury came out he couldn't breathe on his own and looked terrible.  Our big friend Jury was allowed to go into the multibed space, the room our young friend had been in before, just to check on him. There was only one old oxygen machine on this entire ICU floor and after hooking it up they left him alone. But Jury discovered that no oxygen was getting through and no one was around.  By God's grace, Jury quickly found that the main line was disconnected.  Once he fixed that,  the most important thing we could do from that point was to pray- and within a couple hours our young Jury began to breathe successfully on his own and even offered a bit of a smile in this picture.   He is making progress daily by God's grace and we prayerfully believe he has a chance for a full recovery.    The devil came to kill, steal and destroy, but Jesus came to give life... I believe this young man is going to be a powerful witness for Christ, especially among the lost and abandoned young people who are here in Ukraine by the thousands!