Jill Duggar & Derick Dillard’s Sad Mission Trip Update: Death And A Health Scare

Jill Duggar and Derick Dillard are desperately trying to prove that their mission trip is more than a vacation paid for by their admiring fans. In the Counting On stars’ latest mission trip update, Jill tugs at her fans’ heartstrings by writing about a health scare and some tragic news she and Derick received after returning to Central America.

As CafeMom points out, Jill Duggar’s latest mission trip update begins on a sad note. She describes the tragic life and death of a teen girl who had been attending the weekly skills training classes that are a part of Jill and Derick’s outreach efforts. Jill says that the girl “had lived a hard life.” Her mother was in prison, and she was suffering from a health issue that caused seizures. She died after a seizure caused her to fall and hit her head on a rock.

“Most people say she died of a broken heart,” Jill Duggar writes on the Dillard Family website. “It was a sad moment for the village.”

Jill Duggar doesn’t reveal whether she and Derick Dillard tried to help the girl with any of her problems before she died, but Jill doesn’t see the girl’s death as a complete loss.

“Praise the Lord though, that as a result of the ongoing work in this village, this girl had prayed to receive Jesus into her heart at the end of 2016,” Jill writes.

Jill Duggar also recounts a scary incident that happened after she and Derick Dillard were leaving church one night. Derick was driving a group of people home, and one of the older ladies in the back of his truck began coughing and wheezing. Derick pulled over, and he contacted “the local medical person” to come check her out. Jill did what she could to help before he arrived at the scene.

“While he was on his way, I was able to use some of my things to check her vitals. Our friend (the local medical director) ended up giving her an inhaler and taking her home. This situation was a little scary, but thankfully she ended up being fine.”

Jill Duggar’s latest mission trip update reveals that she and Derick rely on a lot of assistance from locals. A pastor’s wife helps Jill with her Bible studies, and the locals share their fresh produce with the reality show star. She and Derick have also partnered with a “lady who teaches skills training,” and she doesn’t stop working whenever the couple returns to the United States for one of their half-year breaks from the mission field. She has recently been teaching local villagers how to paint and make piñatas.

Even though Jill and Derick rely on locals to do a lot of their work for them, Derick insists that he didn’t take his family on a long-term mission trip to El Salvador because he wanted a paid vacation from working as an accountant.

“It’s not a vacation, that’s not why we’re there,” Derick recently told TLCme’s Danni Starr. “Honestly, if we were looking for a place that was nice to go, Central America—at least the part we’re in—wouldn’t be on the top of our list.”

However, Jill Duggar and Derick Dillard couldn’t use donations to travel to popular vacation destinations like Cancun and The Bahamas. According to the Hollywood Gossip, the couple has asked fans to help fund their mission trip by donating money that will be used to pay their “monthly expenses for groceries, utilities, fuel, healthcare, etc.” The couple wants $24,000 to cover the rest of this mission trip term. It’s unclear whether they plan on using some of the donated money to pay for Jill’s maternity care. As People reported, the Counting On star is going to return to Arkansas in a few months to give birth to her second child.

While Jill Duggar and Derick Dillard maintain that their mission trip is not a glorified vacation, Jill does admit that Derick’s mission work includes a lot of playtime. Derick hosts weekly soccer nights, and he’s discovered that playing basketball is “a good way to connect with guys in the area.”

What do you think of Jill Duggar’s latest mission trip update? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

[Featured Image by Jill Duggar/Instagram]