When it gets personal.

This is a post from Medical Team week back in November.  For more information about what that week is like on a practical level, I'll have to write a separate post.  =) 

. . .

This week made me think about what a difference it makes to have a connection to the people we work with, not just to the work we’re doing with them.   For example, I came to Guatemala to work with a ministry that helps girls and their families heal from life-shattering abuse.  Easily said. 

But I know Mercy*.  She came to us after spending a week in the hospital thanks to her abuser.   At the same time as we started praying for her surgery and recovery, we started praying for her sister Mara* to be rescued as well.   The sister that then came every visitor’s day for months and comforted Mercy when it was time for them to leave again, “You’ll be ok, Mercy.  It’s so nice here! Don’t cry, let’s go swing for a little bit.” 

 Now I know Mara, and when she showed up at the Oasis on Wednesday, what we do here became a thousand times more real.   I wanted to do a happy dance and cry at the same time.  I was a ball of excitement that broke down sobbing and ended up jumping, laughing, dancing.  How can you put words to it?  You’re safe, little one!  What you’ve had to live through to come here breaks .  my .  heart .   But tonight…  you’re safe.  

She’s not just a name.  She’s not just our 49th bed.  She’s an answer to prayer and a piece of my heart.   Abba, let the healing begin! 

* as always, the names used on this blog have been changed to protect our girls.  

12 hours later, we were back in Zapote.   In comes the woman we'd just seen yesterday.  The sweet, tiny, young mother of 3 whose womb has been bleeding for as many years… and whose soul has been bleeding for 30.  She asks the doctor about symptoms and medicine, but we all know there’s more to the story.  

Photo Credit: Stacy Carter-Studios

He asks the question and I pray desperately for ears to understand as she whispers out pain, and shame, and guilt, and desperation, and heartbreak, and hopelessness that I’ll never know.  She falters when the past is too much to remember, and surges of pain from the womb that weeps for her sometimes silence her altogether.  But she pushes on into a story of hope and power and faith and the miraculous hugeness of God Almighty, with redemption so beautiful that I want to sing!  But still there’s the look on her face every time she throws out a new evil that has blackened her story, wondering how we’ll take it.  The way she says that most people don’t believe it was ever that bad… nor that God was ever that good to her.   

We believe you, sister!  We’re not going to judge you.  How could we?  It is for this that Jesus Christ died. 

God's mission is so much bigger, so much more personal than I ever would have imagined.  It happens one person at a time, and every time it takes God himself stepping in to redeem what is broken.  It's absolutely amazing.