He grabbed my hand and I knew from that moment that my heart had been captured.
We walked around the cement that surrounds the place he knows as home, hand in hand, and I knew that I had to do something about it.
His name is James, and he’s a Malaysian orphan who was left at the home where we are doing ministry this month. He’s lived there as long as the people who are around him have been there. They didn’t know his name, or if he even had a name. He doesn’t speak. He has scars that mark his forehead from his past; the scars are so vivid you can’t help but see them. But I knew from the moment that I met him that He was an angel.
He has the features of an angel: soft features and a gently sloping face. He laughs all the time. His smile lights up the room; the boy has a light about him that captured me from the first moment I glanced at him. How someone could find it to hit him or hurt him is beyond what I am capable of understanding on any level.
Funny to find out, he has been diagnosed with a disease called Angelman syndrome. In short, it means He probably won’t ever speak more than 10 words, and will always have that infectious laugh that sends a smile to my face. It also means that he will need care for the rest of his life. He won’t be able to live an independent life with the tools he has been given now.
I told my mom on the phone that I want to know how to teach him a full expressive language. I know I can give him the ability to communicate a few things, but it will take a few years of intensive therapy to give him (and his brother Peter) a full language. These boys are not stupid: they understand 5 languages, treat the men and women that live with them so well, but just lack the ability to communicate.
I know that this isn’t the end of the story for me with Peter and James, but just the beginning. Will you commit to pray with me for these boys? Will you bring them to God and tell Him that you want to see them have a full expressive language so that they can go to school and learn instead of being stuck in a cement compound that houses about 15 elderly folks? And if you would, pray for God to reveal to me what it is that I am supposed to do after the race when it comes to James and Peter?
I am humbled to do this journey with each of you.
Until He Comes,
Kristy
