I heard her crying before I saw her. She was surrounded by a few other locals who were trying to comfort her as she sat in the cold morning dew in a muddy patch of grass, her body shaking more as each tear fell.
Pray for her.
“Perdón, ¿Qué pasó?”
She couldn’t speak through her tears.
“Se murió!”
“¿Quién?”
“Su esposo!”
“Hoy?”
“Sí, esta mañana.”
We layed our hands on her and began to pray. I’ll never forget the scratching of her thick wool clothing beneath my hands as her shoulders shook violently, or the heaviness in my heart as we joined her for a moment in her suffering.
***
Hospital ministry has become to mean so much more than just ‘hospital ministry’. We’ve done everything from painting parking spaces outside the building, to praying with families during visiting hours, to swaddling premature babies (skin to skin) to keep them just warm enough to keep their little hearts beating.
Tonight, we will serve food to the families who are temporarily homeless and sleeping outside (sometimes for months) every night in the brisk mountain air. These are people who have loved ones in the hospital and either can’t afford transportation to and from their homes every night, or live too far away to travel home at all. Since hospital space is already far too scarce for the patients, family and friends are only allowed to visit at 2pm every day. The rest of the time, they wait outside.
As I reflect on the last couple weeks I feel a mix of emotions. I think of the beautiful little girls that we’ve befriended, Paulina and Catalina, both ten years old and “abandoned.” (I say this because we showed up one morning to find out Paulina had returned home, to where we were told she’s been abused her whole life, with her older sister. We are praying that this is a good situation but it is hard to know.) I think of the other abandoned children…Macario, Regina, Vilma… Where will they go? What will the rest of their lives look like? International adoption has been closed in Guatemala, so their only hope for a family lies in the hands of an already poverty stricken country. Oh what I’d do to be able to take them in my backpack…
But I can’t take them away with me in my backpack. So what’s the point? What was the point of playing ‘Que animal es?’ with the girls, or coloring on Paulina’s cast, or painting Catalina’s fingernails or helping Macario learn to walk? I realized in a critical moment last week that I don’t want the girls to remember me. I want them to remember and to know Jesus.
I want them to know that He loves them and that He will never leave them. I want them to know that He is holding their hearts and even though they may not have mom’s and dad’s that love them on this earth, they have a Heavenly Father who has infinite amounts of love for them.
As a group we decided to leave them with a little keepsake. My teammate Claire and I spent an afternoon with a translator, Daisy, who so kindly helped us write a childrens book based off the parable of the Good Samaritan. We decorated it, wrote notes and scripture at the end of the book, and made a visit to the hospital for a little bedtime story.
It’s not likely that I’ll know what happens in these sweet children’s lives. But I know that God hears my prayers and that as we claim these precious lives as His, His protection is surrounding and filling up their hearts. What’s even more amazing than that is the fact that even before these little ones were born, even before we fell in love with them and started praying for them, He held every moment of their lives in the palms of His hands. He loved them, and knew the number of hairs on their heads.
Please join me in praying for all of the people we have encountered in Guatemala – all of the families we’ve prayed with in the hospital, all of the abandoned children we’ve come to love, and all of our ministry contacts that have been such a blessing to us this month.
On Tuesday we begin our thirty hour bus ride, and the exciting transition into month two. My team will be living with another team, Oceans, at CICRIN Orphanage in Ometepe, Nicaragua. We are hoping to have better access to internet, as I’d love to keep everyone more updated with blogs and photos. Please forgive me for the lack of accessibility this month! The prayers and encouragement I’ve received this far have truly been a blessing and I wish that there was a better way to express how much it has meant to me!
