Humbled and Overwhelmed

Years ago, 2004 maybe, I fell deeply in love for the first time.  I met a woman in Seattle and her adoration for who I was brought me a happiness I had never before experienced.  We met in September but I remember the following Spring vividly, especially the vegetation.  The reason I remember the flowers and blooms, the growth, green and bright all around Queen Anne and the other places I happened upon that season is because I had never noticed the vibrancy of Spring before.  My mind was awake to the beauty of God’s creations.

I found myself bending over to bring rosemary and lavender closer to my nose before inhaling deeply and then sitting, tall in my shoes with my eyes closed, so that I might never forget the moments of those days.  Now I seek the beauty of blooms wherever I go.  El Salvador is full of beauty and sadness; all of the elements for health and plenty are there, but there is so very much suffering.

On Monday of this week, Cebolla took my father and I to two orphanages we had not seen before.  Now that we have seen them, we have experienced a total of three El Salvadorian orphanages, which by no means makes either of us any more than akin to novices on the subject.  Although I cannot speak definitively on the subject of orphanages, I can speak definitively as a human who spent a few hours walking among the suffering, the trapped, the lonely, the forgotten.

Hogar Del Niño Adalberto Guirola has dedicated most if not all of its facilities toward caring for children with brain damage.  In one of the rooms there were seven children between ages 8 and 12 who were housed in baby cribs.  One of the boys, upon hearing the voices of us, the visitors, began rocking back and forth with his face up toward the ceiling and crying out.  He must have weighed about 90 pounds; a child trapped within a body he could not control, trapped inside a baby crib he could not escape, trapped inside a compound leave, trapped inside a nation without resources, trapped inside a world with no end to the misery it brings him.

Hesitantly I thought “I should touch him.  Maybe if I just touch him and pray for him, he will have some amount of peace.”  I had almost decided to walk out the door, his screaming at the sky and endless repetitive flexing and rocking was not easy for me to stand near.  A caretaker had come to sooth him by then, kindly placing her hand on his shaved head, turning his right ear through the delicate smoothing of her thumb and pointer finger.  “Can I touch him?” I asked, showing her what I meant with my hands.  “Si,” she replied.  I placed my hand on the point where his neck and shoulders met and I prayed to God to heal him.  He was not healed, nor was he soothed or his cries answered.

In short order I followed Cebolla and my father out of the room.  We were on a tour hosted by the Hogar’s principle.  What can we do to help that child?  What can we do to help that child?  What can we do to help that child?  I asked God why He doesn’t heal that boy, why He doesn’t heal all of the children of that place.  The answer I got was that God is healing those children, and that is where the Body of Christ comes in.  We are God’s hands of care and feeding, his praying lips, his weight bearing shoulders.  We can do more; as Christians we should be doing more.