The first time I ever felt like I was going to pass out, I was probably eight years old. My dog, Cookie, had just been spayed, and my dad brought me with him to the Silver Lake Animal Hospital, and I watched the vet pull the stitches out of her tummy. I felt my head fill with helium and my knees started to go weak.
Now, 24 years later, I still have to lay down when a needle comes out. Giving blood or getting 12 vaccinations for the world race still accelerates my heart. (tachycardia?) While I might not look to tough in the doctor’s office, the benefits include orange juice and crackers.
With this reaction to medical things, when my brother, Jason, said he wanted to be a nurse, I thought he was joking. I thought he joined the medical club at our high school just for the girls. (the reason I went with him on one of the field trips). Jason would regale me with tales of putting in catheters, helping fat men with constipation, and my most vivid memory of his stories is his description of a man in kidney failure passing what looked like “a steak milkshake” through the catheter. I still cringe when I imagine a t-bone in the blender.
Yesterday, Linnea had a glass of guava juice. A pink frothy smoothie….
Team Nessa is living in a concrete structure on top of a hill with an amazing 360 degree view of Backdoor (sounds like a place from the ‘Chronicles of Narnia’), South Africa. We arrived yesterday to this town which is a 20 minute drive from Nelspruit. I believe Backdoor was the inspiration for a boy’s band, “the Backdoor Boys”, you know, Justin Timberlane, and all.
Linnea is making a sandwich for me as I type, and as we prepare to head into town. We just came back from a morning at Themba Hospital, with a couple truck loads of people from Arco Iris ministries here. About 30 of us split into two groups and walked around the hospital praying for the patients, the families of patients and for the workers. Our group headed into the children’s ward.
The faith and joy of the people we joined with is amazing. I almost feel like they actually enjoy this and believe in the power of prayer, healing and the Holy Spirit, and when I am with them, I almost really believe it too. I do believe it, at least in my head, but my heart sometimes doesn’t FEEL it. I trust God hears and answers, but sometimes just feel like bringing a smile to the children and touching them communicates God’s love best. Feeding their ‘skin hunger’ by rubbing their backs, touching their hands, flicking their ears, but not by giving them wedgies, I am not sure they would understand that, yet.
I realized my most tangible experience of God comes at these times. Looking into the big brown eyes of these children who only know pain. What can I do? Children born with AIDS. Children covered in burns. The smell of the rooms (the good news is, I did not feel like passing out, or even barfing, my heart simply breaks). Do we actually do anything by visiting these kids? The smiles on their faces is the best answer for me. I might not be able to do anything that would strengthen my ego by playing the hero and actually doing anything to change the kid’s circumstances, but a momentary joy and smile, a twinkle in the kids eye, will have to suffice. I hope that bringing a moment of joy to these suffering children does something to improve their lives, I am not really sure how all this works or is supposed to feel. Mostly I just feel helpless.
I looked at one child, who appeared to be about 6 years old. Beautiful brown eyes. A large blender full of guava smoothie. Pink and frothy. We asked what it was. The only liquid I had ever seen like it was Linnea’s drink.
A long ‘crazy’ straw disappeared somewhere on the way to this child. The nurse told us that this was liquid from his lungs. So many of these kids have pneumonia, have battled the ‘opportunistic’ diseases (because of the immune deficiency due to AIDS) their whole lives. It is not his fault he is sitting in this room, lungs draining day in and day out. He did not ask for this life.
As I remember the quote, but forget who said it, “if a child starves to death while a christian has food, that christian is guilty of murder”, I wonder our responsibility to the thousands of children just like him. I don’t believe God operates in this guilt. I don’t believe this quote is actually christlike. I think this quote came from the religious spirit of the 4th century. I do like the conviction and thought the quote brings.
When I think of our responsibility to these children, I can only think of Jesus. He did not accuse us of murder in our negligence. He just said that the day when the sheep and the goats are separated, we will be judged according to our actions. That what we have done or have not done to the least of these, his brothers, we have done or not done unto him. I wonder if he was serious?
What can one person do?
