Our living situation this month consists of us living in our tents on a compound across the road from a hospital, but not just any hospital, the national hospital of Guatemala. This is the only public hospital in the territory and it serves over a million people. They have 120 beds and 7 operating rooms, which only 3 or 4 of them are working and have the proper supplies. We began our tour through the emergency room, the men's wing, the woman's wing, and they we came to mother/child wing….
My mind was flooded with visions of tiny babies, cuddled by their mother's or resting in their beds, but my eyes deceived me. We walked past several rooms filled with about 10-15 mothers or children in each room,children laying on beds, the entire family surrounding them, and then we came to what Americans would view as a NIUC. In Guatemala it is called the 'nutrition room'.
When you enter the 7 x 15 room, you see a mother trying to get her extremely malnurited 5 month old to eat, walk in a little more and you see two infants sleeping on the bed. We soon learn that both of them have been abandoned by their parents, due to various circumstances.
Meet Macario.
…..
Our ministry contact informs us that she met Macario 3 weeks ago, and they didn't think he was going to make it. He has a feeding tube and was very ill. Yesterday he had no feeding tube, and was getting better. When I learned that he was 3 years old my heart broke, tears welled up in my eyes.
We talked to him, cooing and gentle touches, and then he smiled. Oh boy, did he smile. In that moment i saw Jesus is his smile.
You see Macario in a sense is sentenced, sentenced to that bed until the Guatemalan courts can decided what orphanage to put him in, until he is of age, where he is most likely to become a street kid.
But God…The God how sets captives free!
I saw Jesus on his face, I saw a peace overwhelm his little 12 pound body, and a grace well up in his tiny heart.
Jesus was there.
