Author: TryingtheSpirits

**Names marked with an asterisk (*) have been changed for the privacy of individuals and their families**

When Doctor’s Shrug

Researching online today (2020), documents, studies and even recent evaluations about the yellow-fever vaccine and breastfeeding are readily available, likely because of the push toward “Breast is Best.” Four year ago, however, it was nigh impossible to find the details of documented cases with nurslings, but the Lord had already opened the door for contact with multiple International Board Lactation Consultants (IBCLC) and several doctors who were knowledgeable about breastfeeding because of those many years of struggling with breastfeeding that I NEVER thought I would be thankful for! Though the lack of published documentation about the transfer of the yellow-fever vaccine through breast milk yielded more questions than answers, each doctor was able to provide new pieces to the puzzle which aided us toward a clearer answer. We continued to research and pray, knowing that God already knew the answers, until one evening, while scouring the internet for any credible data, the Lord finally guided us to the very cases used as evidence to support not administering the yellow-fever vaccine to nursing mothers!

As it turns out, the only documented cases in nurslings that were adversely affected (yellow-fever encephalitis, etc.) by their mothers receiving the yellow-fever vaccine involved newborns who died within a month of the mother receiving the vaccine. Our little Annabelle*, though a nursling, was going to be nine-months-old by the time we went for our travel immunization appointment, the exact minimum age for receiving the yellow-fever vaccine. If Annabelle* was medically old enough to receive it herself, though not required yet in Zambia until age one, why would it be dangerous for the vaccine to pass through breast milk, except in the possible case of her dose, plus mine, overloading her system? We continued to work with the medical professionals until we all reached the safest conclusion: I would receive the yellow-fever vaccine, not Annabelle*, and my breast milk would provide her with the antibodies my body created in reaction to the yellow-fever vaccine. We were relieved, but we also knew we were not entirely out of the woods, yet.

Our Miraculous God

When we arrived at our travel immunization appointment, we respectfully showed the nurses the clearly-listed requirement for the yellow-fever vaccine on the Zambian Embassy’s website, but they still could not administer it to our family because it went against the recommendations of the Center for Disease Control (CDC). We followed up in the room by calling the Zambian Embassy, as we had already done over a month prior at home to verify the requirement, and then requested that the nurse come over and speak with the Zambian embassy in D.C. directly. Afterwards, she left for what felt like years, but then came back with the vaccinations and blank certificates we required for the trip! God was faithful, and once again, He answered our prayers in ways that we NEVER could have imagined.

Looking back, God’s hand was evident every step of the way, from finding out that most of the vaccination costs were covered, to keeping Brendon* safe when his neck spasmed up a week after receiving the yellow fever vaccine. The Lord miraculously corrected a prescription note mistake at no cost to us, and then provided just the right pediatrician before the trip to advise us about using jelly packets to help our children ingest their anti-malaria medication! This does not even begin to cover how he provided for the international medical insurance, the approval from a sleep doctor for my husband’s CPAP to be on the plane, or the process of getting my medication authorized for the plane in case of an allergic reaction!

God had been so good to us, and we rested in that knowledge as we continued to wait and pray for God to somehow work through the situation with our tickets and the dangerous protests erupting in Zambia with the upcoming election. Our faith had been tried, our resources spent, and we were exhausted already, but we encouraged each other to keep our eyes focused on the Lord, knowing that the God who parted the Red Sea and made dry bones talk could handle this situation, also. The last thing we expected, however, was for Douglas Stauffer to become the next major roadblock on our way to Africa.

In this series I share my thoughts and opinions concerning these ministers and the events which led to my departure. Click here to continue reading: “Blindsided: Sent to the Wolf, Unaware” or click on the link below.

For a list of the complete series, click here.

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**Names marked with an asterisk (*) have been changed for the privacy of individuals and their families**

When my oldest son, Brendon* was about two months old, he developed an infection with a severe wheezing cough that left even the on-call pediatrician concerned because of his general lack of responsiveness. After realizing that Brendon* had not been inoculated against whooping cough, the pediatrician instantly sent him over to Children’s Hospital to be tested, but as I frantically researched through the night while waiting for the results, we learned that whooping cough usually killed around day ten, while results would not become available until around day fourteen! I was distraught, especially considering we had just made the decision not the vaccinate against pertussis (whooping cough). Knowing that my uncle died from polio, we had previously decided to move forward with vaccinating our children- just on a delayed schedule- but we decided against the whooping cough vaccine because the immunization had proven itself deadly on my father’s side of the family and almost claimed my brother’s life as well. The new a-cellular pertussis vaccine contained a lower dosage, according to the pediatrician, and thus tended to have significantly less side effects, but we were nervous to take the risk. Shortly after this decision, my little newborn was being tested for whooping cough, and it carried just shy of a 100% death rate in children under six months. I was an emotional wreck for days, fearing we could lose our little boy.

Within a few days, however, Brendon* started acting more like himself, and shortly after that, we received the negative results back from Children’s hospital! Though we were beyond grateful that God had saved his little life, vaccines became an even weightier topic in our home. Unfortunately, when it came to our Zambia trip, the list of recommended vaccinations appeared endless. To make it worse, Zambian officials required a certification of immunization against yellow fever, a live-vaccine known for knocking trained military-men off their feet, before permitting travelers into the country. Though we worried for our children, we had no idea that this one vaccine would become a predicament unto itself.

Required… Or Not? 

In Zambia, yellow fever had only been eradicated for several years and the Zambian embassy clearly stated, “Since 1^st October 2011, all travelers to and from Zambia are required to be in possession of either a Yellow Fever Certificate or a valid wavier certificate.” With this in mind, we gathered our immunization records from out-of-state, obtained updated records for our children, and called the health department to gather precise information about immunization requirements and costs for our upcoming trip. To our dismay, the nurses informed us that they could not administer the yellow-fever vaccine to us because the Center for Disease Control (CDC) website stated the vaccine was not recommended for American traveler’s to Zambia! No matter what information we gave from the Zambian embassy, their hands were tied.  Furthermore, even if they could approve the vaccine and give us the yellow-fever vaccination certificate required to enter Zambia, they could not administer it to Annabelle* because she was less than nine months, creating a new conflict for administering my yellow-fever immunization because it was “counter-indicated” for breastfeeding mothers. Combine that with learning that the total vaccinations costs amounted to several thousand dollars and it was beyond our ability. We could only rest in knowing that God alone was able to work out the details and get us to Zambia in a few short months.

Should Our Children Stay? 

The Zambian embassy confirmed over the phone that they did, in fact, require the yellow-fever vaccination certificate for Americans to enter into the country, but there was still nothing more we could do until the appointment at the health department. Should the health department decide to follow the CDC website according to protocol, our options would be limited to canceling the trip or risking someone stopping us at the border and possibly offering our family that vaccine unofficially at inflated prices. To say the least, receiving the vaccines through the health department before departure was the significantly better option. We decided to pray and allow God to work miraculously in the days leading up to our appointment, while we focused in on the safety of me and Annabelle* even receiving the vaccination because of breastfeeding.

Would it not be better to wean Annabelle* before her first birthday so we could leave our children safely behind with trusted friends? On the other hand, would it be detrimental to be away from our separation-anxiety-prone children for two whole weeks? And how would we ever know exactly what we needed to have prepared for the field if our children stayed back in the states? We grappled with the idea for a while, but finally decided, again, to move forward, knowing that the very God who called us to go to Zambia in a few years was the same one we needed to entrust with our children for the upcoming trip, and the same one who already knew the answers.

In this series I share my thoughts and opinions concerning these ministers and the events which led to my departure. Click here to continue reading: “Blindsided: Medical Mazes (Part Two)” or click on the link below.

For a list of the complete series, click here.

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Early in public high school, I was privileged to see the Lord work miraculously by answering prayers in ways that would increase my faith and even begin preparation for missions later in life. During this time, I firmly believed that Crown College was the next step in God’s direction for my life, but simply visiting the college was a hurdle unto itself as my unsaved parents hesitated to send me to a private Bible college that was out-of-state, rather than to a successful, accredited college nearby. As the months went on, my father eventually set his eyes on a liberal college nearby in honor of a friend’s devout daughter who had unexpectedly passed away while attending the college just a few months prior. On the morning of our visit, however, the Lord used an elderly gentleman seated behind us at Bob Evans- nearly a hundred miles from our home, by the way!- to sternly warn my father about the college’s immense shortcomings! By the time we left the college that day, my father was not only firmly against this particular school, but he was finally ready to visit Crown, with one stipulation in mind: I had to do the leg-work for planning the trip.

Truly, the entire situation at Bob Evans was an answer to prayer, a solid pillar in my life that I could look back on to remember God working through the impossible, but the Lord used it for significantly more later on. While I probably looked like a deer-in-headlights from my father’s purposefully limited guidance in planning the trip to Tennessee, this one life-lesson provided me with the knowledge and experience to break down a major trip into manageably-sized potions. By the time my husband and I were preparing for our Zambia trip a decade later, that seemingly minuscule folder of lists for the Crown trip evolved into organized binders, an expandable file folder, multiple envelopes to carry pertinent documents, and computer files where the folders had folders, and even the lists had lists! Zambia made the Crown trip look like a cake-walk, but the Lord used it to prepare us for navigating through passports, visas, medical authorizations, complications with necessary immunizations, packing for our young family, and infinitely more. Through it all, when we became overwhelmed or discouraged, the Lord continually reminded us of His goodness in the past, and that “The future is as bright as the promises of God.”

**Names marked with an asterisk (*) have been changed for the privacy of individuals and their families**

Passport Blessings

Back in 2014, before Douglas Stauffer had a significant influence, we were astonished when Pastor Andrew Ray had graciously offered for Antioch Baptist Church to pay for our passports to assist us in completing our survey trip before starting deputation! Our tentative trip that year did not come together, but around the time we bought the airline tickets two years later, we continued to count it a blessing that we only needed to apply for Annabelle’s* passport, saving us hundreds of dollars. We were even more excited to learn that we only needed to get two extra passport photos each to send with our visa applications. Imagine our relief to learn that Walgreens was still issuing regulation-approved passport photos considering we needed 2inx2in photos, with head sizes between 1-3/4 inches, white backgrounds, and neutral expressions, not just for ourselves, but for an eight month old infant and a high-energy two-year-old boy! The ways that God worked in the little things were ever a reminder of the goodness and greatness of God.

Strict Government Documentation

After receiving Annabelle’s* passport in the mail and confirming with the missionaries that we needed to apply for four tourist visas, we finished-up the two completed visa applications per family member, with a signed, recently-taken passport photo attached to each individual application, as per instructions on the Embassy website. The Zambian Embassy also required our physical passports, individual copies of the confirmed airline ticket/itinerary, and separate money orders/cashier’s checks for each set of applications! As we prepared to send off the documents, praying they were filled out correctly/entirely and attempting to trust the Lord to keep these sensitive documents safe in the mail, we learned that the Zambian embassy FURTHER required the paperwork to include a pre-paid return-envelope that was completely filled out. Any mistake in paperwork, documentation, or mailing information could not only delay the approval of our visas, but significantly increase the amount of time it would take to receive them back.

After calling around to the United States Postal Service (USPS) and the United Postal Service (UPS) without success for the service we needed, we were finally directed to Fed-Ex, a company that had already established a process for providing tracking numbers with the initial and return envelopes, as well as the ability to charge an account later on for the return shipping cost. Within a few short weeks, the Lord came through once again as the Embassy notified us that our visas were approved without complications, and we later praised the Lord for returning our sensitive documents in a safe and timely manner!

Planning for the Unexpected

Per my father’s advice, we placed our passports in our recently-purchased passport holders to go around our necks during travel for safe-keeping, and we made copies of our passports and other important documents in case anything became misplaced on the trip. After that, while researching about passing through customs, we learned that misplacing our passports could result in our children being stopped and held in a country overseas until we could provide official documents- in this case, birth certificates- to prove to the government that we were not transporting someone else’s children out of the country illegally! In general, presenting birth certificates would have been considered sufficient, but as a married woman, several governments required a marriage license as well as proof of a change in surname!  After making multiple copies, we placed these pertinent documents with the other papers for the trip.

Thankfully, we never lost our passports and never had to show proof of rightful guardianship, but we were grateful for the advice to prepare ahead of time. Imagine our surprise, however, to learn of our next bump in the road: immunizations. The local health department already greatly hesitated to give us the yellow-fever vaccination required by the Zambian Embassy because Annabelle* was a nursing infant, but then they further informed us that they were restricted from administering it to us because of conflicting information between the Center for Disease Control (CDC) recommendations, and the Zambian Embassy website’s requirements for entering the country.

In this series I share my thoughts and opinions concerning these ministers and the events which led to my departure. Click here to continue reading: “Blindsided: Medical Mazes (Part One)” or click on the link below.

For a list of the complete series, click here.

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As if hand-sewing were not already the bane of all existence, the inventor of the sewing needle must laugh in his grave, watching the hours of torture people endure attempting to get an ever-fraying piece of thread through a minuscule hole barely chiseled out at the top of a needle! To make matters worse, certain projects require various sizes of needles, while thread seems to come in as many widths as it does colors, resulting in the need for a different sized needle depending on the thread! Several years back, however, a man visited at my church in Maryland and preached a message I have never forgotten: “God knows how to thread your needle. He knows how to supply your need.” That one phrase has stuck with me for more than a decade, especially considering I am one of those people that is extremely grateful for the self-threading option on sewing machines and I avoid hand-sewing like the plague! In the midst of uncertain trials, the Lord has often reminded me that God already knew exactly what I needed, exactly how to take of it, and how to use it to make me more like Him. As we encountered obstacles along the journey of finally visiting Zambia, I reminded myself of that truth often, repeating multiple times along the way, “God knows how to thread my needle. He knows how to supply my need.”

**Names marked with an asterisk (*) have been changed for the privacy of individuals and their families**

Moving Forward By Faith

Just before the spring of 2016, Matthew Olds and I were elated to see the Lord work out the finances for our survey trip to Zambia, Africa after several years of waiting and praying, but we also knew that the time-frame for purchasing tickets at a decent rate for during the cool-dry season was closing fast. According to several missionaries, as well as the Zambian embassy and travel sites, the long cool-wet season was often crippled by flooding, and the hot-dry season would be nearly unbearable, if not dangerous, considering the ages of our young children. We also knew that if we did not order tickets soon, we risked postponing our survey trip another year, or possibly needing to start deputation without a survey trip under our belts. Therefore, after looking at the Zambian calendar to avoid major holidays and events, we ordered tickets for our little growing family in March of 2016 for near the end of Zambia’s cool-dry season, trusting God to work out the details.

Twenty-Seven-Year-Old Lap-Baby

In late April, as I went online to send off copies of the flight itineraries to both of our parents as a safety precaution for going overseas, I noticed something peculiar about the tickets. The tickets listed Annabelle*, our youngest at the time, as a twenty-seven-year-old male, and my husband as the eight-month-old, female lap-baby attached to my ticket. My two-year-old son, Brendon*, was also listed as the head person to reference on the tickets! While ordering the actual tickets online, I had to call the travel site because I was struggling to add Annabelle* as a lap baby- one that is young enough to sit on a passenger’s lap and usually does not require a full-price airline ticket- but the website lacked clear directions on how to purchase her ticket. Over the phone, almost a month prior by this point, the customer service representative confirmed that Annabelle* was not listed and added her to my ticket, but he must have mixed up our family’s personal information in the process!

As comical as it was to imagine my husband as a lap-baby and my daughter as a twenty-seven-year-old male, I feared this technical error could delay us in customs or prevent us from boarding a flight. Unfortunately, calling multiple times a week for months and dealing with conflicting information even between representatives, accomplished absolutely nothing besides wasted time and stressful days. As the dilemma continued, never resolving until shortly before the trip, it tried our faith as an underlying current throughout the entire preparation process. We held-fast to God’s declaration that He held the entirety of the world in the palm of His hand.

Letters Through the Internet Abyss

Even though we had a few missionary contacts in the country, the internet in Zambia was entirely unreliable, and snail mail could circulate around the globe for months. After working through several drafts, we sent out emails, Facebook messages, and any form of contact we could think of to find a missionary to host our family, but even after a month, there were no responses. We continued to wait and pray, keeping in mind that several people who had visited Zambia before had already warned us that emails seemed to get lost in the abyss of Zambian internet. In the meantime, we researched the possibility of needing to stay in a Zambian hotel by ourselves. Disheartened, we admitted what we already knew, that learning the culture and seeing the ministry work of an already established missionary was wiser, and not to mention safer.

Right On Time

As we worked through the process of passports and visas, and the dilemma of my infant’s ticket, we waited prayerfully, yet anxiously, for a response. Finally, after what felt like years, the Lord answered in HIS timing- not ours- and a missionary responded back near the end of May. They could not host us at the time, but they were able to get in contact with another missionary. Then another responded. And another. And another. We witnessed God working miraculously until a point in time when we had several missionaries that were graciously willing to host our family during our survey trip!

Just two months before our scheduled trip, the Lord worked out the locations our family would stay in Zambia, and we were excited to stay with a missionary family to the Deaf that Matt had been praying for and keeping up with throughout college, as well as another missionary family nearby that had been in Zambia for almost twenty years! Reading their responses, however, we also learned that political unrest had recently started in Zambia because of the upcoming election, and we were set to land in the capital on election day. The missionaries suggested changing where we were set to land or adjusting the dates of the trip entirely. While my head started spinning and I anxiously called the travel site on multiple occasions, my husband bathed this new dilemma in prayer and encouraged me to continue planning and preparing as we had been for months, resting in the knowledge that God was able to do abundantly more than we could ever ask or think.

In this series I share my thoughts and opinions concerning these ministers and the events which led to my departure. Click here to continue reading: “Blindsided: Crossing I’s and Dotting T’s” or click on the link below.

For a list of the complete series, click here.

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“Whoso boasteth himself of a false gift is like clouds and wind without rain.” Proverbs 25:14

My husband and I had always questioned the rational behind Douglas Stauffer leading the missions department at our church considering his lack of experience as a missionary, but what difference did it make when we could inquire from other people around us about the realities of deputation and the mission field? Besides, maybe he did have bits of wisdom from his time as an assistant pastor, and considering he was a supposed evangelist, he would have already had experience and knowledge about deputation and how to get one’s name out to churches. We hesitantly tested the waters, keeping our eyes on Zambia, but instead of wells of wisdom, we found a perpetual drought.

Straining at a Gnat

“”Ye Blind guides, which strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel.” Matthew 23:24

Peter Ruckman, an Independent Baptist scholar and founder of Pensacola Bible Institute in Pensacola, Florida, is well known for his outlandish claims about the “Authorized King James Bible” correcting the so-called errors of the Textus Receptus and the Greek and Hebrew texts. Ruckman’s followers, commonly referred to as “Ruckmanites,” have continued to perpetuate these teachings even after Ruckman’s death in 2016. Despite Pastor Andrew Ray telling us initially that Antioch Baptist Church was not a Ruckmanite church, we heard often from the pulpit about the fallacies of using the Greek and Hebrew, and how missionaries are Bible-corrupters [correctors] if they do not translate from the King James Version on the field. What did this have to do with Douglas Stauffer? Stauffer was a strong Ruckmanite and as far as we could tell, a major part of his job description was scrutinizing potential missionaries against this standard.

Stauffer’s personal view can be summed up with his statement that if one uses the modern version, he has no authority, and if one uses the Greek or the Hebrew, he is his own authority. (For a more detailed response from Stauffer himself about referencing the Greek and Hebrew, click here.) When it came to those of us surrendered to the mission field, rather than advising on how to find churches for deputation, he asked us to make a database of churches for him that were not only King James Only, but also did not use the Greek or the Hebrew. Essentially, he taught us how to limit our resources to a legalistic, Ruckmanite standard, making us thankful for being able to fall back on the insight we were given from experienced missionaries at Crown College of the Bible.

Seeing the Forest for Trees

The second part of Stauffer’s job description as head of missions was visiting the missionaries our church supported to make sure they were doing what our church felt they were supposed to be doing with our monthly support. But how did he view them? As equal brothers in Christ in the ministry? As one body working together for the cause of Christ? No, not in the slightest, because interestingly enough, Douglas Stauffer stated repeatedly that pastoring in the United States, a job he supposedly did not want to do, was significantly more difficult than being a missionary on the foreign field. The irony though, considering his previous position as an assistant pastor, is that he stated repeatedly that he, personally, would never go to Africa.

Guiding Future Missionaries

While we were not looking for a close mentor or someone to hold our hands, we were longing for hands-on experience in the ministry to prepare for the field. In contrast, when it came to our calling to work with the Deaf in Africa, Stauffer purposefully limited- and eventually eliminated- the amount of times we were interpreting in the service despite that the set-up was established in case any Deaf showed up at the church. What was his reasoning behind the decision? It was supposedly so we could receive more of the actual preaching.

Additionally, his lack of encouragement for anyone in their personal walks with the Lord and failure to point anyone to Christ for direction and guidance spoke volumes. Instead, he was a detriment to those God had called to the mission field and even later excused his behavior by equating one’s ability to deal with his discouragement with how successful one would be on the mission field. Stauffer was, admittedly, a purposeful stumbling block to my family, but God had already proved Himself faithful in our lives multiple times over, and thankfully, we were not dependent on Douglas Stauffer to get us to the field.

In this series I share my thoughts and opinions concerning these ministers and the events which led to my departure. Click here to continue reading: “Blindsided: Planning on a Prayer” or click on the link below.

For a list of the complete series, click here.

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Shop at our Amazon store! As an Amazon Influencer, this website earns from qualifying purchases.