Since my team has moved to Guatemala City we have been working with a ministry called Mi Arca. Mi Arca works with kids around the city who are at risk, live on the street, and basically just have hard lives. We get to go and just hang out and love them, sometimes teach, and do prevention work.
On one of our first few days at the base there were only about three kids there so I started playing air hockey with a boy named Juan Carlos. He is around 10 or 11 and is one of the most kind and polite kids you’ll ever meet.
Today when we arrived at the base our coordinator told us he was making a hospital visit and for us to come with him. So we walk down the street to a bus station. Hop between two buses through the city, finally get off and then walk several blocks more to the hospital. We walk up to the doors and it’s already off putting. There are women sitting on the curb weeping while there are also people begging and trying to sell you things. We go through security and then walk through the hospital to get to the children’s wing. The colorfully painted walls help to mask the poor conditions in this hospital. There is one large open room lined with beds with aisles between. Each bed is labeled with a piece of copy paper with a number drawn on it stuck to the walls. The kids range from infants to around 12. We walk all the way to the furthest back corner from the door and in the bed in the corner is Juan Carlos. Two doctors are leaning over him checking different things and taking note and then discussing. His mother sees us with our coordinator who she knows from her sons time at the base. She comes and introduces herself and shakes all of our hands. We ask how he is doing and she begins to start crying. My teammate Melanie and I tried to comfort her rubbing her back and hugging her. Eventually everyone goes to play with Juan Carlos and try to cheer him up. I chose to stay with his mother. I tried talking with her with the little Spanish I know. From her and our coordinator I find out that Juan Carlos has hepatitis. He was diagnosed about a month after he began going to the center. This was his second time being in the hospital since but they don’t know for how long he will be hospitalized this time. For the rest of our time I just stood with his mother while she periodically cried. I watched her watching her son, watching her smile when he smiled then remembering her situation.
It is hard to see anyone hurting. It is hard to see the conditions in a third world hospital knowing the conditions of American hospitals. However, I have to trust that God has a plan and a reason for everything. Juan Carlos health is in the hands of God therefore things will work out how they are meant to.
“No unbelief made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised.” – Romans 4:20-21
Also I posted more photos from our last days in Antigua: http://emilywestbrookphotography.pixieset.com/lastdayinantigua/
