“I wish I could be your mama” is what I whispered into his ear yesterday when I left. Manuel Lito is the most precious thing that has happened to me here in Antigua. He is soon to be 7 years old (though he only looks to be about 3 or 4) and he lives in a hospital.
When he was 3 years old his birth mother, who had him when she was 13, took him to the hospital for a scheduled surgery and never came back. This beautiful little guy is a ward of the state and currently in Guatemala it is near impossible for the locals to adopt and even harder for foreigners. Almost every day I go to the hospital to hold him and sing lullabies to him. I tell him about the beaches and lighthouse in Nova Scotia; I tell him what it’s like to fly a kite and eat an ice-cream; and I tell him how much Jesus loves him. I tickle him to make him laugh and kiss his little cheeks. He pretends I’m not funny, but secretly he digs me. He fits so perfectly in my arms and his head so warm tucked under my chin. When he cuddles back, I fall more and more in love.
Manuel Lito is very sick, which is why he lives in the hospital instead of an orphanage. He has spina-bifida, infantile cerebral paralysis (cerebral palsy), and hydrocephalus (water on the brain), which required him to have shunts put in both sides of his head. He shakes his head a lot and sticks his fingers in his ears—at first glance you’d think he has a behaviour problem but he does this to relieve pressure from the build-up of fluid. The past few days that I’ve gone to the hospital I find him in his crib in a soiled diaper that he has most likely been sitting in for a while. He still drinks formula from a bottle, not because he can’t digest thicker food but because it’s “easier” to feed him this way. In order to become an LPN here in Guatemala you simply have to complete your 6 years of primary school (aka high school) and then volunteer every Saturday for 3 hours for a year. As I sit and hold him I realize the blessing I have to be from Canada. This would never happen to me in my country. We have been so blessed with medical technology and therapeutic programs more than we will ever know.
One day I was holding Lito and asking God to heal him. It’s just not fair that he is so small and so sick and so alone. If anyone deserves to be healed, it’s children like him. Then God made me realize: His plan for Manuel Lito is not to be healed, but to be a healer. When people hold Lito, their hearts will be healed, their perspectives will be healed, their selfishness will be healed, their despair will be healed, their faith will be healed and their trust will be healed. Lito’s smile takes my breath away and heals my faith. I wish I could keep him and give him a home and a family but I can’t. And I have to trust that that’s okay. For now, for this season I can hold him and love on him. My mother used to sing “You are my sunshine” to me when I was little, and I thought that was so fitting to sing to Lito. He is my sunshine and he makes me happy when skies are gray.
Please pray for Mauel Lito. Pray for the nurses. Pray for his birth mother.
Pray that when we leave in 9 days, my heart doesn’t break in two.
Pray that when people hold him, they see Jesus and they are healed.
