Christopher had chosen to be clean and sober of paint
thinner for one month. We knew how difficult this was going to be for him and
we wanted to see him set free from his addiction. For the first few days you
could see in his eyes that his body was going through withdraw.Slowly joy began to fill his eyes again and
he started to smile more.
One day my teammate Rachel and I went into town with Tony,
Christopher, and Henry. It was day five of Christopher’s detox from paint
thinner. At one point it was just Christopher, Rachel and I at the store and I
was really worried about him because he was very quiet and his eyes looked very
troubled like he was thinking of the paint thinner.
All I could do was pray for
him. Talking to him to see how he was doing wasn’t working so I knew it was
completely up to the Holy Spirit to fight for him at that point. After we
finished shopping we sat outside with our grocery bags waiting for Tony to pick
us up. Christopher then reached into his pocket and took out a necklace with a
cross on it and put it around his neck. The rest of the day he wore it proudly.
Later that afternoon we went to visit Christopher’s grandmother. His
grandmother recycles trash. While we were sitting there with his grandmother
and his cousin a man high on paint thinner walked by and Christopher kept
watching him. I just kept praying that Christopher would see this and never want paint thinner again.
We sat there for about an hour with Christopher. We helped his cousin
with her homework and helped his grandmother sift through the trash. There were
bags full of maggots and worms as we sifted through trying to find plastic
bottles, paper and any other valuable items. Soon Christopher began to ask when Tony was going to come back and
pick us up. It was obvious that Christopher knew he wanted to be back on the farm.
I mentioned in my last blog that the seventh day is the
hardest day for withdraw and that God had huge thing planned for that day. That
day was a Saturday. On the seventh day Christopher, Henry, Ariel, Carlos, Luis and Fernando dedicated their lives to Jesus through baptism. Tony and the pastor
Nicholas met with the boys a few days prior to the baptism and shared with them
that dedicating their lives in this way was a big commitment and if they were
ready to dedicate their lives to Christ then to say yes to being baptized.
A
few of us decided to join them in the baptism as well. For me the decision was
made because it was a way to truly commit my life in a new way. The race has
taught me so much about what it takes to follow Christ and I am ready to give
everything I have to share his love all around the world. To me it was a way of rededicating everything to him.
To be continued…
