“Ma’am, ma’am! Can you please help a lady in the hospital? She doesn’t have any family here. She’s alone, has no family, and her baby just died.”
“Where is she? What is her name? Who are you?”
“Her name is Maria M. She’s in the hospital. I know your group helps people. Please help her. She needs a way to get home. You can give her money.”
“I’ll talk to the lady in charge and we’ll see what we can do.”
This was the conversation I had with a man one night while in Guatemala. I was siting on the front steps of the ministry house talking with my teammate, Brittany. I told him I would talk to our contact, but I had no intention on doing so, nor did I believe the story. I didn’t need to go looking for our contact. She walked right by me. I felt the Lord telling me that I had to tell her. So I did.
She said that it could be a lie—just as I suspected. I did what I promised and began to walk back to where I was sitting. I didn’t get to sit down again. I was faced with reality. Two women approached the ministry.
“Hello, my name is Maria. I’m looking for help.”
I was in shock.
“Ma’am, please help me.” She held her stomach area. “I don’t have a way to get home.”
“What’s wrong?” I asked her.
“Ma’am, my baby is dead.” She began to cry.
I didn’t know what to do. I asked her more about herself and about her story.
Maria told me that her daughter was born on July 13th at a different hospital and was transferred to this hospital because she had a problem with her lungs. Her daughter was 4 days old when she died. Maria is 23 years old and has no family. She lives in a distant city and had no way to get home.
Our contact walked by and I told her that this lady I was talking to was Maria M. She told her story once again and began to weep. Our contact did what I could not. She showed her love and hope through that love. I was frozen, but our contact deals with these situations often. I left soon after they began talking.
As I began to think about what happened, I began to weep. I wept because Maria is in pain. She went to the hospital with the hope that she would return home with a healthy baby. She returned home with a baby in a casket. She returned home broken. She returned home empty handed, or did she?
The next morning, Maria returned. I thought I was ready to minister to her, “This is my chance,” I thought. “Now I will tell her about the Gospel.” She came and I froze again. All I could say was “God is good and He will take care of everything.” Our contact met Maria at the door and helped her with practical things like purchasing her bus ticket home and the baby’s casket.
A few days later, I sat down with our contact and asked her how she preaches the Gospel to people. She said it’s not her job to do so because people have already heard of Jesus. She explained that the Lord called her and her husband to love on people and through the love people would experience Jesus. She told me that the day Maria returned, she was able to witness to Maria because she had performed acts of kindness and love.
That’s why we’re here, that’s why I’m here: to display the love of Christ in ways that the world cannot.
