It's been awhile and too much has happend to catch up with. There seems to have been alot of heartbreak lately. I was in a village where a few of us found this precious little girl named Regeni. We thought she was a baby of about a year and half old. But as we treated a gaping wound on her forehead that was infested with flies, we learned that she was actually 5 years old. this little girl had lost her mother at the age of 4 months and been left to lay in the dirt by her father for the past 5 years. Her grandmother does all she can to care for her but is so blind and frail that she can hardly care for herself. Regeni's perfectly healthy, cared and provided for 6 year old brother attepmts to give her food sometimes. But she is so terribly malnutritioned and full of worms as a result of eating dirt that there is little to be done. When I picked her frail little body up I could feel her lungs rattling every time she sucked air into them. We were broken and ready to do anything to help her. But the greatest tragedy is that her family refused to let us help. Refused to let us pay for a doctor or even bring a doctor to the village. The situation became dangerous as tempers and words flaired and we were forced to leave the village. Now all we can do is pray. It seems like so little yet I know it is so much. I actually pray for Regeni to be in the arms of her heavenly Father, free from her suffering.
Suffering, such a prevalent thing in this place. I have a friend Onita who lives at the Mother Theresa house. A few weeks ago I held her while she writhed in pain as my friend Silvina dug worms and magots from her open wounds. Onita is healing so well now and her smile is returning. Her body is still skinny beyond what you can imagine. But as I sang a Christina Aguilera song to her yesterday about how beautiful she is, she couldn't stop grinning. It was truly beautiful. Onita bonita, it rhymes so well. Still more suffering. I lost my Aunty Pam. I really love that woman. But as my mama said, she has gone home to be with the Lord, she is done with earthly pain and suffering, no more for her, only paradise and praising the Lord. Yes my heart aches and my tears have been my food for days now but I will yet put my hope in the Lord and lead the people into the house of the Lord with shouts of joy and singing.