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Show 1 " W HAT a little cl?wn!" Bart.>ara, our summer nurse, had saId when httle eight month old Lorainne had come in for her shots. And a clown she was indeed with her large, dark eyes and coal-black hair straying straight up like tumbleweed. ot long ago her grandfather carried her across the footbridge up to the Mission saying that she had been sick for two days. The child wa unconscious and quite blue. Jo started artificial respiration, quickly applied oxygen and called for a plane. After suctioning her, Jo kept up her work until the ambulance from Bluff arrived, then worked her little lungs with the oxygen all the way to the airstrip. She convul ed and died about five minutes before the plane set down. We brought her back and her mother washed her and prepared her for burial, wrapping her in her little blanket. So ends a life. A week later Clara came to the Mission, having walked from her hogan, and announced that she wa about to have a baby. Before anyone could shout "Emergency!" she was on her knees just in front of the common room. We opened the door s of our now-closed clinic, Joan quickly taxied her down in the Ford and in ju t a few minutes a four pound, stillborn boy was delivered. We buried the body just before Vespers when the shadows are longest this time of year. The eternal bluffs looked down on a stark and touching sight - just across the wash from the graveyard was the body of a dead horse waiting to be buried by the tractor. And just last week Helena appeared at the vicarage at breakfast time asking for diapers for her little brother. "Surely not for four year old Herbie!" "No, for my little brother!" "Do you mean your mother had her baby?" "Yes." Sure enough, Maggie had a little boy, later named Benny, on the floor of the hogan with grandma assisting. He was a beautiful sight in his little, temporary, baling wire cradleboard, as eye ointment was administered. Maggie smiled her approval. Sam the father was beaming. So begins a life. How very heart-breaking to know that many births are again occuring in hogans, after years of training mothers to come to the clinic for pre-natal, maternity and post partum care! Much interest is growing in this problem and we have faith that before too long our medical work can be resumed full-time. 2 THE cover of our Newsletter is our Christmas card to you. The desert scene shows that Our Lord was Very God made Very Man for all men and the colors of Our Lady shows her part in His Glorious Birth. Greetings to all from our staff and people and thanks so very much for your gifts, contributions and prayers - and here'. a special Christmas message to all our readers. D URING the last World War, on a Feast of the Nativity of the Prince of Peace, a sorrowful king spoke over the radio to the people of his country bringing them words of faith, comfort and hope when they were beseiged night and day by an enemy whose power seemed limitless. The usual accompaniments of Christmas were absent. 0 cheerful fires in the grates. Turkeys, plum puddings, mince pies - all seemed things of the past. There were few toys to delight the hearts of the children. At night town and country were shrouded in darkness and the people had to slip through doors and heavy curtains before they could gain the relative cheerfulness of a meagerly lighted room. But they listened with love and pride to their king who with them endured the terror by day and by night. He ended his message with a favorite quotation - "I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year, 'Give me light that I may tread safely into the unknown', and he replied 'Go out into the darkness and put your hand in~ to the Hand of God. That shall be to you better than light and safer than the known way' ". 3 FOR those of u who have elected to leave the known way and go out into the mission field to try to make the truth of God's love and His Redemptive purpose known to His beloved Navajo people these words have a very special meaning. Inevitably occasional moments come to us when we feel fru trated in our efforts or tired after a long day's work and we ask ourselves if indeed this is the way Our Lord really wishes us to walk in. The doubts persist even though they may be induced merely by a subconscious nostalgia for the old way of life - gracious living in a New England home, the excitement of a Broadway opening night, the challenge of a well-paid city job, parties, social evenings with one's friends, the glitter of shops on Madison Avenue and Fifth, the apparent security of knowing that the fulfillment of your wants and needs is dependent only upon the size of your bank balance and the distance between yourself and the telephone - these and many other backward glances can subconsciously work upon a tired body and despondent mind to create exactly that climate of doubt which the devil finds ideal for his own purposes. But sooner or later perhaps while working or while praying, we do reach out into the darkness and find our hands held firmly and lovingly by the hand of God and, in the very fact of Creation, by the hands of all of you who love us and pray for us. For ever since Our Blessed Lord became a man He has used mankind in a new and unique way to do His work, to mediate Hi love and compassion one with another. The change from despondency and doubt to cheerfulness and hope may be brought about by any number of things - a group of Navajo children who run into church and sit beside you laughing and trying to read the service books. It may occur during a few minutes of prayer before the Sacred Presence of Our Lord in the tabernacle. It may be just a good meal or a period of relaxation in one's own warm, lit room |