I headed down to Laura Flores a few days ago to help my friend Lydia. She is an occupational therapist from England and has been a missionary in Santo Domingo for almost a year now. She gives free therapy to the children at the school we work in, and also gives some private home sessions to a few kids around the neighbourhood and in Laura Flores.
I went out to help her give a session to a beautiful little girl called Natalie. Natalie lives in Laura Flores with her mother and 3 older sisters. She has cerebral palsy. Natalie is unable to walk and spends her days lying down on a mat in the middle of the hut built out of stone slabs that her family of 5 women call their home. She can't stand up; she can't sit- she can only roll over from her back to her tummy on the stone floor. Day in and day out she watches her 3 older sisters run around with the other kids on the block through the arch cut out of the wall that they refer to as their front door.
Lydia had me help her out in the session with Natalie. I was to put preassure on Natalie's hips while Lydia would gradually extend her legs outwards and inwards to exercise the rigid muscles in her frail little legs. I couldn't hold back the tears; the scene was heart-breaking. Her tiny body seemed so fragile; all I could think of was how much we must've been hurting her, without her even being able to let us know if we were due to her inability to speak. However, Lydia assured me that if sweet Natalie were in any pain we would see it in her face, so that made me feel a little better about the fact that us- two foreign looking strangers in this little girls eyes- were prodding around with her limbs.
That afternoon really made me have appreciation for what Lydia does. I mean, I admired her already, but to see her in action, and to experience a taste of what she has to go through everyday to help the people here in Santo Domingo that she wants to reach out to just makes me so thankful that the world has people like her. Every soul makes a difference.
This week has been up and down, emotionally. Acutally, thinking back on my time here so far, it has been very emotional, period. I find myself crying A LOT- not necesarrily because I'm sad, but because God does some crazy shit sometimes. Most of the time it's a mixed feeling between wanting to cry a freaking river and wet myself laughing at the same time. I end up doing both which proves quite problematic for the people around me ("Is she crying?" No, I think she's laughing...oh, who knows.."). The people that I have met, and some of the things that I have experienced so far show just how gracious God can be, even to the people that are struggling in life.. It's so amazing that people that have so little can live out of so much faith and can continue to turn to God without cursing the lives that they have been handed. If only the people that had so much could do the same. Argh, it's so frustrating being the one who knows the contrast. The contrast between 'rich' and 'poor', I mean. Even though you are aware that you are here helping people and making a (tiny) difference (hopefully), sometimes the feeling can be even worse knowing that 1, you cannot help all of them, 2, you can only help them for a short amount of time, which in the bigger scheme of things doesn't enable them to make much progress, and 3, virtually every single person you know could be helping a person less fortunate then themselves but most of them choose not to.
Everyday in this life there is something to cry about; something for your heart to break over. Some days are really tough. But, hey, that's easy for me to say- I get to get on a plane in a few months and leave it all. My position is the easy one. That's what's the hardest to face- the fact that the people that I am meeting have no choice...and I do. I was blessed with the choice to be here or not- they weren't. Years from now when I have a family of my own to look after, chances are that we will have a roof over our heads and beds to sleep in at night. I will live in a place with 4 walls and a front door, and I'll have something to eat for breakfast when I wake up in the morning. Then, maybe as I'm reading the newspaper over my coffee (cos I'll be old enough to do that then) I will stumble across an article about people dying of hunger, or people living in really poor conditions...and I'll think about places like Laura Flores. I'll think about all the children I'm meeting and how by that time they will either have 10 children of their own, or be in jail, or would have already died because of mal-nutrition or some diease that could have been cured with simple an antbiotic that would have been unattainable to them.
Even when your called to help, sometimes you cannot help feeling helpless.
On the other hand though, some days are great- like today. I got to go and hang out with my beloved OrphAids kids- oh my goodness, I just love them so much I want to put them all on a plane and adopt them and be on the news: 'CRAZY 20 YEAR OLD ADOPTS 15 ECUADORIAN CHILDREN IMPULSIVELY WITHOUT THINKING ABOUT THE CONSEQUENCES'. They are just SO amazing, I wish that all of you could meet them.
Things are also going really well with the school kids- Geovany and I are making a (mini) traffic light in class. We were both so excited today that we got our two lights working- we assembled everything from scratch. Geovany was happy that he was able to accomplish something 'hands-on'. On the other hand, I was over-joyed to be able to excerise my electrical skills without the presence of a bloke. I am one step closer to being an electrician.
Just one more thing for those of you praying out there- please pray for my friend Diego. He is struggling with life at the moment, and has started asking some sweet questions about 'life as a Believer'. Please pray for his spiritual journey.
Also, please pray for my dreams. I'm having a really strange re-occuring dream that I'm singing to young girls in a rehab centre...it's strange. Please pray for God to give me clarity if He is trying to show me something.
For the rest of you, just one request- please take as little as 2 minutes out of your morning or evening to think about the people that I'm mentioning in my blogs once in a while. Maybe just a thought- even from all the way across the world, in a land that they don't even know exists, and from people that they can't even imagine are living- is what they need to put a smile on their faces. The power of the mind is bigger than we can imagine- God might use your little thought to brighten their day, even without them necesarrily knowing it.
In love and peace,
Crissi
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