But before you get the blessing of meeting Henry, you must first meet Henry's mom Maria and listen to her story. She has invited us into her home in order to share a very hard piece of her life with you.
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| Maria's kitchen |
This is Maria. Welcome to her home. She rents this shack with dirt floors which currently does not even have running water. 22 years ago Maria was raped by a man and found herself pregnant. She gave birth to a boy who suffered from cerebral palsy and epilepsy. For the past two decades she has cared for this boy day and night with no one to help her. His name is Henry.
Unfortunately, Henry has multiple seizures a day and they are very severe. When he was 8 years old Maria met a man who began to give her Q100 a week. That is about $12. The man did not live with her, he would only come to "visit" her. He began to abuse Maria, often choking her and hitting her with his belt among other things. He also tried choking Henry. Despite the extreme poverty in which they live and that Q100 was enough to put a little food in their mouths every week, Maria decided she had to stop seeing this man.
Maria can not afford diapers for Henry, so they use shirts. When we first got to Maria's house this morning, Henry had a red shirt draped over his midsection. It was soaked with urine and Maria, a little embarrassed threw a green shirt over him.
Henry can not walk, talk, and can barely move on his own. He has a kind of wheelchair, but it is unusable. Maria was able to give Henry some pills once when she was receiving the Q100 from the bad man and she said it seemed to really help. Now they can't even afford food, let alone pills.
Maria can not work because Henry can not be alone. She can not take Henry to work, she says, because he scares people. Henry has sores from head to toe on his disturbingly thin body. Maria tells me that this is from when he seizes, he falls out of the bed and onto this dirt floor.
Maria grew up Catholic and she told me about 5 years ago she found the gospel and gave her life to Christ. Maria wept and wept and as we laid our hands on her and prayed for her. She also began to pray with great fervency. She believes God. She has faith. She knows that Jesus does not choose to heal everyone and she understands that if He doesn't heal Henry it is because He will receive more glory from Henry's disability than He would from Henry being well.
Never the less, we laid our hands on Henry's precious body and we prayed for Him with all our hearts. We trust that God has a plan not only for Maria's good, a plan to give her a hope and a future, but a plan for Henry too. We accepted that God loves Henry more than any of us ever could.
As much as Maria loves her baby boy, she has asked us for help. She heard we take in children that don't have families and who need help. She has come to a point where she can not lift him and she doesn't want to watch him suffer. She is willing to give him away if it be for his good. Well, I explained to her that we do exactly that, but for children orphaned, children abandoned, children abused, and children of the street....age 10 and under.
But God has said that we are "NOT to withhold good from those who deserve it when it is in our power to act."
So here we are, "acting". Tomorrow I will go over there with some food, nail clippers, toothpaste and a toothbrush, and I will show Maria how to clean Henry up a bit. I will bring some water over there and we can bathe him. I will offer to wash her blankets for her also. We have located a home in Antigua called Hermano Pedro that takes in people of all ages with severe disabilities. I have already written to them.
Now I am writing to you. Would you please "act" also. Just take a minute, right where you are, and pray for Maria. Thank God for putting such a strong commitment inside of her, thank God for her salvation, thank God for the life of Henry and pray for him as well. PRAY please that this home in Antigua, or some other home somewhere would take him in and give him everything he needs. And the joy that is written all over Henry's face...well the author of that is Jesus Christ. Praise Him because He loves the least of us!!
As you pray for Henry and Maria, please remember that this is nothing really surprising to find in the rural parts of Guatemala. There are thousands of children like Henry who are sufferring, even without a devoted mother to care for them. These are the ones that we want to see rise above the world, above all odds, and follow the Lord heart and soul. These are the ones that we want to one day see taking the gospel back to their own people with power and great conviction. This is our mission.
Mision Vida Nueva
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