Day three in Guatemala was amazing! We began our day in a hospital in Antigua that cares for men, women, and children with cerebral palsy. We’d been there before with our Spanish-speaking contact, but today we went alone. So I was called on to translate during our entire tour of the hospital! I was both nervous and excited to take that on; thankfully I understood basically everything and was able to translate effectively!
We turned a couple corners and were in a hallway with severe cerebral palsy patients. It was pretty overwhelming, and honestly my first reaction was to feel very uncomfortable. They had food all over them, some were flailing about, others seemed not there at all mentally. It was so easy to pull back into uncomfortableness. But the tour was continuing and I had to translate, so I decided that I wasn’t going to let myself take days to get comfortable there.
One of my teammates mentioned something so true, that these are the least of these, these are the people we’re called to love. They’re all precious. And they’ve all been abandoned by their families. Even the precious baby boys and girls. We walked into a different area and immediately a 20 something year old woman came up to me and wrapped her arms around me! The permanent volunteer there told me that that was very atypical for her, that she usually never likes physical contact! The hug lasted for a good minute and then she proceeded to sing happy birthday to all of us.
Later on we split up and seven of us went to the “grandpa home.” I began walking around making small talk with the “grandpas.” As I was going around asking how everyone was, one woman responded with a frown and a dismissive wave. So I sat down next to her. She completely opened up to me! You could just tell that she was lonely and sort of searching for a purpose. She told me that as a child she was prevented from going to school, so she can’t read. Most of them just sit in the courtyard, not talking, not doing anything. They’re abandoned by their families, and hardly anyone visits them. But we’re going back to the grandpa home every day!! So they will have visitors every day for two months.
Later on my awesome teammate Lindsey called me over during coffee time and told me that she thought there was something wrong with the lady I had been talking to earlier. Turns out she has a throat problem that causes her a lot of pain and sometimes prevents her from talking. She had tears in her eyes as she explained to me that she really wants to be able to talk. So we got on the floor next to her and began praying for her. Lindsey was told that we should pray with this woman for healing for the next three days. We have faith, for with God nothing is impossible!
Tomorrow we’re going back to both of those places. Honestly I wish I could convey so much more of what is going on here, but my blog would go on forever! The community we have here among our team is more than amazing. God hand-picked each of us, for each other. Our contact asked us how long we’d known each other, and when someone told him three days he exclaimed that he’d thought we’d known each other our entire lives. Words can’t describe how blessed I feel to be here. Please keep praying for our team and all the people we’re encountering here in Antigua! More to come later…
(By the way, I can't figure out how to put pictures on here, so I'll have to put some on later! Lo siento!)
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