Our main ministry this month has been at Hermano Pedro Hospital. I am not quite sure why I haven’t written a blog about this but I haven’t been able to formulate the words properly. At this hospital there is an orphanage that houses children, teens and adults who have mild to severe mental or physical disabilities. We go and visit and hang out with the children every day. Some days we hang at the hospital and just talk with the kids or walk them around the open area of the hospital. Other days we take them to the park which is just a couple of blocks away. Or we can take some of the kids who have the ability to eat to Pollo Campero (a fast food chicken restaurant) for lunch.
Allison and Rosa at Pollo Irving working on his Pepsi
At first I really struggled with this ministry and these children. I was asking the Lord why. Why are these children left here to die or just to exist? Why did God create them this way if their existence would just be to sit in this hospital until the end of their days? Even in my questioning God was faithful and answered me through the Word. He reminded me of the scripture in Luke…
Are not five sparrows sold for two cents? Yet not one of them is forgotten before God. Indeed, the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Do not fear; you are more valuable than many sparrows. Luke 12:6-7
Me & Jo Jo at the park Sweet Clara at the park one day
God has numbered the hairs on these children’s heads just as He has numbered mine. Just because I have the ability to walk and talk and think “normally” that doesn’t mean that God cares for me more than He does for these children. He created them individually and knows every detail of their minds and bodies just like He knows mine and yours. I still don’t understand why the Lord allows this but I trust that He is faithful and His purposes and plans are perfect. I have been blessed with joy beyond compare by spending time with these precious children. And I am so thankful that the Lord brought them into my life to share the love of Christ with them while I am here in Antigua.
O LORD, you have searched me
and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise;
you perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down;
you are familiar with all my ways. Before a word is on my tongue
you know it completely, O LORD. You hem me in—behind and before;
you have laid your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,
too lofty for me to attain. Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me,
your right hand will hold me fast. If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me
and the light become night around me,” Even the darkness will not be dark to you;
the night will shine like the day,
for darkness is as light to you. For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place.
When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body.
All the days ordained for me were written in your book
before one of them came to be. How precious to me are your thoughts, O God!
How vast is the sum of them! Were I to count them,
they would outnumber the grains of sand.
When I awake, I am still with you. Psalm 139:1-18
