Maria Elena is a woman of incredible strength, and I am honored to get to write about her. No matter the circumstances she always gives glory to God with praise.
To get to our ministry everyday we have to take two busses. We leave our base and stop in San Luis, then to San Lorenzo where we do ministry everyday. Abby and I really love small animals, so we just had to play with the adorable kittens at our bus stop in San Luis. On the second day we went to play with the cute little kittens and inside the small bakery where the animals were coming from was a small woman yelling “Venga”, which means come here. I looked at Abby and then we just walked in. Abby, speaking much more Spanish than myself, began to ask her questions. Then we asked how we could pray for her and she immediately pointed to her foot and we saw several small towels tied around her ankle and foot area. Maria Elena began to tell us about her pain, and how it is hard to walk. We prayed for complete healing and for all the pain to leave her body in Jesus’ name. After we prayed she asked if we wanted to see her ankle. Unsure we just said “yes” and she began to unwrap it. Underneath was a really severe fungal infection. The only way I have any clue what was going on with her is because I sent pictures to my dad and he diagnosed her, even though he keeps saying “ I am dealing with WhatsApp pictures.” From our understanding she hurt her ankle and began wrapping it with dirty rags and had already had a case of athletes foot and the infection grew and now is covered in larger sores of some sort and in a lot of pain. From this point I knew we had to help her and we could only do it with God’s help.
The next day we went to a pharmacy and following my Dad’s instructions we got all the supplies we needed, even though everything was in Spanish. Abby is very vital to our team for many reasons, but we would totally be lost half of the time if she wasn’t here to help us. From that day on my team and I go back to her house everyday and go through all the steps to help her get back to health. Of course we pray first because God is the ultimate physician, then I unwrap her leg and wash it. When it is completely dry, so we don’t cause even more of the infection to grow, I rub in an anti-fungal cream, then I wrap it again with clean bandages. Everyday we come and grow closer to her and see her leg heal more and more. The difference from when we first started to now is straight from the Lord. She praises God all the time and thanks Him for sending us to her. It was totally a God thing that we stubbled upon Maria Elena. Now I have the privilege to know her story and hear more and more about her.
She is 72 years old and is full of energy all the time. When we leave here she will be one of my hardest goodbyes. I just want to do everything I can to help her while I am here and I am praying everyday that she will be healed before we leave. I truly love this lady and she constantly is amazing me. If you want to see pictures scroll down to see the progress. It is straight from the Lord and you can totally tell!
This was the first time we saw Maria Elena’s leg.
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This is me applying the anti-fungal cream to her leg
These are the pictures from yesterday when I went and cleaned her leg! the difference is amazing and just a demonstration of God’s work.
