This month I have been volunteering at an Adventist hospital here in Penang with a team mate and two members of another team. Everyday we get on a bus and start our day at the Chaplaincy department. We pair up with a Chaplin and go visit patients, spend time talking with them, and sometimes praying with them. Then in the afternoon we work for the development department collecting donations for the heart patients fund. This month of ministry has been harder than I thought it would be, and I have already been stretched and grown by my experiences here. Usually I don't see a patient more than once because patients are discharged so quickly. Except for one. Her name was Ruth.
Ruth was twelve-years-old. She was from Indonesia. Last month, she was fine. What her family didn't know then was that she had a tumor growing in her brain. When her parents found out, they wanted to get her better medical treatment and so they brought her here to a hospital in Malaysia. I met Ruth right after she came out of her second surgery that week. After that my squad mate Veronica and I went to visit her everyday even though she was usually pretty heavily sedated because of the pain and discomfort she was in. She would usually just peek her eyes open and then fall back asleep right away. When we would go, her mom would try to be strong, but day by day you could see her resolve failing. By Wednesday, she was falling apart watching her daughter not improving and slowly getting worse. On Thursday morning, the parents were told to not expect much more time with their little girl. Through the tears we sang Amazing Grace to Ruth and just sat with her parents all morning in the room and the waiting area. At the end of the day as we were leaving, we got a call saying that they were asking for Veronica and so the two of us ran back up the room. When we got there, there wasn't anything else that could be done and everyone was just waiting. Within twenty minutes, Ruth was gone. I have never seen or heard more intense grief and anguish as I witnessed that day watching parents lose their child. We don't speak their language, so we did the only thing we could and cried with them.
I had never seen anyone die before. I have witnessed and experienced grief, but not like that. My heart hurt for the pain that this family was feeling. I prayed intensely for Ruth. I prayed that her pain would be relieved. I prayed for comfort, peace and joy for her here on this earth. What I didn't know was that God had a different plan for her. She knew Christ as her Savior and He had a better plan for her to experience perfect comfort, peace, and joy with Him. She is no longer in pain.
This week I learned the value of sitting with someone and sharing in their pain and grief. The value of a friendly face in a foreign land of strangers. That it is possible to become family with someone with whom you have never exchanged words with. And I felt the overwhelming comfort and peace Christ has to offer in the days after Ruth's death. Our God is a God who heals. Sometimes he heals the body, but sometimes He heals the heart instead.
