OR:
Mango Flies and Mango Pies . . . . . .

Outside our front windows resides a giant mango tree. Planted by JD and Kevin years ago, it marks the age of the house, or so we like to believe. The mango tree is too big, really. It blocks the front of our home and is somewhat ugly. It has large, overhanging branches which can not be trimmed because they provide the perfect climbing perches from which Quinn and his friends play monkey; performing one-handed tricks in exchange for pieces of banana from me. Our mango tree serves other functions as well; a bench strategically placed beneath the front-facing branches provides a shady greeting area for visitors who must often wait to see us. The mango tree, large and ugly though it is, is a staple of our yard.

These days the mango tree is loaded with fruit. Staff children knock more raw ones down each day. They take one bite then discard the rest, finding it still too sour to enjoy much. We encourage them to gather those fallen mangos and we peel and piece them, baking them into pies, cobblers and tarts – the sour taste sweetened just enough by the combination of sugar and baking . . . Melt in your mouth tart-sweet juicy fruit heaven.

Mango trees attract other pests than small children, though. This we discovered thoroughly on Saturday when we realized that Naomi does NOT have chicken pox. Instead she has a very thorough and large mango fly infestation in her body. We’re talking about big grub larvae that I am pulling out of the tops of her ears, her arms, her scalp, her neck, EVERYWHERE!! For days I thought there was something alive in there. I researched in our books but none of the worms mentioned matched what I was seeing in her wounds, a small pulsing round white blob, possibly pus but strangely more active. As her wounds festered more and more, looking less and less like chicken pox and becoming extremely painful I became very concerned. It is hard to watch your child wake in the night screaming from pain and not know how to stop it. After three days of increasing pain we had tried many desperate measures of creams, ointments, rubs, etc. Saturday evening we applied thick globs of pain killing neosporin then immersed her in a hot tub. Minutes later several of her many wounds began opening and something immerged slightly. I grabbed with tweezers and pulled and there in my hand was a wiggling grub. We pulled 11 more last night and are up to a total of 23 so far today. There are still at least four more and probably a few more in her scalp that I have not found.
The Tumbu fly or mango fly is a resident of East Africa. It lays it’s eggs on wet clothing hanging from the line, in Naomi’s case most likely a pillowcase. When the clothing is worn or slept on the immature flies can immerge, burrowing through human skin in less than a minute with no pain. There they stay, growing bigger and bigger in their larval form until they are finally discovered and pulled or squeezed out. Some of Naomi’s were small, others an inch long and a pencil width. Though mango flies are a normal occasional part of life for East African children, in 15 years on the field the Myhre have never seen more than two on any one person. Naomi’s infestation was a truly terrible record and we believe it to be a direct attack from the enemy. I have been struggling with terrible fears and dreams about Naomi for weeks. And I as I struggled, I have been reminding Satan that she already belongs to Jesus so there is NOTHING that can separate her from Him or me. It was Naomi’s desperate prayer of faith that once again provided miraculous healing. Within 45 minutes of her beautiful and commanding prayer, Naomi’s larvae had been discovered and were being removed. How amazing to watch her faith grow, deepen and become more sure through trial.

Naomi barely ate during the last few days of her sickness so after the first 19 were pulled she was HUNGRY! The next morning I did not miss the irony as I brewed fresh Ugandan coffee with local milk and sugar and baked up a big juicy MANGO PIE for our breakfast. Naomi devoured it all and asked for more, to fuel her growing strength – because JESUS ALREADY WON.