It's easy.
Maynor was smiling so hard he couldn't keep his eyes open
In Antigua, we were blessed to work with kids who live at the Hermano Pedro Hospital. We originally were going to work mainly with Luis's ministry teaching values in schools, but the first week we were in country all the kids were still out on holiday. Louis cobbled together some ministry locations for us at the hospital and at old folks homes that turned out to be a huge part of our ministry for the month.
The kids at the hospital are beautiful. Every one of them has some degree of Cerebral Palsy, some worse than others. How this was explained to us is that this disease attacks the brain, inhibiting its ability to control muscle movement. Then, since they can't move muscles voluntarily their muscles start to wither and atrophy, causing their bodies to literally shrink and wither away. Life expectancy for early onset CP in Guatemala is not great.
Byron throwin some gang signs, but not really
Even though their arms and legs may not work well, these kids are every bit as much little boys and girls as any other kids, and I feel absolutely blessed to have been able to spend time with them. It's still hard for me to put into words how much of an impact these kids had on me, so this will be a video and picture heavy blog.
I can say that I find strength in their joy and playfulness. I find hope in their smiles and hugs. And wrestling with them was so fun! I got my butt kicked, let me tell you!
Here is a video I took on our last day, featuring my main man Henry, Maynor and some other amigos too:
