Remember my last blog entry…the 3 little girls that accepted the Lord while sitting in the park on a particular concrete bench?
Well, now imagine that very same park and even the very same park bench 7 days later.
Here’s what happened:
For the first time since I’ve been here, we had a team that included 2 physicians (a wonderful husband and wife team). I had given out numbers to the crowd waiting to receive medical care in the park in Amatitlan. As always, there were far more people than numbers. When I saw how the time to patient ratio was working out, I knew that we’d be able to see
about 4 more patients, and thus gave out an additional 4 numbers. As it turns out, God had something special planned for the 3rd additional person, Katerin (also called Katy). Katy had just turned 10 yr old a week earlier, and she is absolutely beautiful- soft light brown skin, beautiful large dark eyes, flowing long dark hair and a shy but large smile with dimples.
Katy’s mom (Coni) brought her to the park since she heard there was a medical clinic. Coni reported to Dr John that Katy wasn’t growing and didn’t have energy to run and play with the others. Dr John listened to Katy's chest w/ his stethoscope and then called me over for a teachable minute. His face told me this was something significant and his voice told me that what I was about to experience was something I would hopefully never experience again. This beautiful young girl had a heart murmur as big as Texas. John asked her pertinent questions and examined her thoroughly (or as thoroughly as possible in an open park with no medical tools except for a stethoscope and many years of experience).
After speaking in hushed tones for a few min, I was asked to do one of the most difficult things I’ve ever done. While Dr John saw the last patient, I walked Coni and young Katy over to “the” park bench and called Oscar over to help me get through the conversation in Spanish. I told Katy that Dr John may have found why she was so tired all the time and that she may need to see another doctor in the city. Then I dismissed Katy into the nearby loving arms of other team members to keep her occupied. We then broke the news to Coni that Dr John believed her daughter had a gravely serious condition- a hole in her heart- which over 10 years had caused her heart to beat extra hard and to greatly enlarge due to the pressure of trying to push blood thru a hole that was not designed to be a passageway. Dr John and his translator Caroline soon joined us. As expected, Coni was overwhelmed with this news. She wept deeply in my arms and there wasn’t a dry eye anywhere around. When we gathered ourselves a bit, we all retreated into a gracious neighbor’s home where we ate lunch and could visit and chat, getting to know each other a little more, and focus on something other than the issue at hand.
As we finished lunch, Coni said she was up to attending the afternoon Bible study that was about to start at the park. And Katy said she wanted to go the simultaneous children’s program. Over lunch, Coni had shared her firm belief in Jesus Christ as her Savior and it was obvious she was already leaning on Him. Katy said she didn’t really know Christ, so we told her that we’d tell her all about Him at the children’s program today and in the weeks to come. Then Coni did something that demonstrated that her focus was on target. She asked that all of us, the Guatemalans and Americans combined, would gather around her and Katy for prayer after the crowd thinned from the program. And indeed we prayed- neither loud nor boisterous- but with arms and hearts lifted up and tears flowing down as we prayed on Katy’s behalf to our Father in heaven.
The 45 min trip back to our home in the city from the Amatitlan Park was a bit quieter than usual. And Katy was about all we could think about that evening.
I don’t believe in coincidences. I do however, believe in God-incidences since I believe He is in control of all things at all times and thus He cannot be taken by surprise.
Therefore I believe it was a God-incidence that:
• A mother and daughter on the visiting USA team that week were also named Katherine and Connie.
• Coni was led to bring her daughter to the clinic on the one and only day that we’ve had a physician at that location.
• It was not just any doctor, but a well-experienced pediatrician.
• Caroline, a completely bilingual translator, was with us.
You know, it’s really about a heart condition. One week it was about the heart condition of 3 little girls that were sitting on a park bench and ready to hear about the Lord. Exactly one week later, almost to the hour, it was about the heart condition of a different little girl sitting on the same park bench. She shared the same need as the other little girls (in that she says she doesn’t know Jesus), but she also has an additional need. Of course, we’d like to see her physical heart condition mended, but above all, it’s her spiritual heart condition that will make a difference for all of eternity.
