All the Little Children: Precious in God’s Sight
|
 |
By Julie Cramer
Antigua, Guatemala, is a page torn from a Spanish Colonial fairytale. Women and children sell jewelry and hand-woven blankets in the cobblestone streets. Inlaid ceramic road signs help tourists find their favorite boutiques, washed in rust and ocher paint. Clouds encircle three surrounding volcanoes like smoke rings from cigars, and 200-year-old convents echo with visitors’ whispers.
Yet as with all fairytales, some princesses in Antigua are in distress
|
More than 120 girls live at Manchen Girls Home, a government-run orphanage. This past summer a team of women from Christ Church in Plano, Texas, brought a message to the girls: “You are beautiful in God’s eyes. You are princess warriors of the King.”
|
|
|
The team worked with a group of 25 special needs orphans ion the morning and the rest of the girls each afternoon. It was with the special needs girls that they met Sofia—deaf, with autism.
During crafts one day to teach self-esteem, Karen McManus, a team member, felt prompted by the Spirit to draw out Sofia’s artistic talent.
“I sat close to her,” Karen said, “and began to paint a butterfly with perspective and realism. I didn’t look at her, but could feel Sofia stirring. I cupped plastic jewels in my hand and she slowly began to apply them to the shirt. As I watched, something amazing began to unfold. We worked in perfect sync. After lunch an interpreter told me that Sofia wanted to show me something. She emerged beaming as she displayed a beautiful still life she had painted.”
Moved, Karen purchased the painting and, once home, placed it the former spot of an antique painting of the Madonna. “I had forgotten about this [place on my wall] until I sat on the plane,” she said, “realizing how beautifully God filled that empty space. ‘Special needs’ must be code for angels. The girls reminded me of my own growing daughters who want the security of a mother’s hug.”
|
|
|
The last dance
|
|
Yesenia was another girl in need of a mother’s embrace—and has inspired team member Jill Keppler to return to Guatemala for a month this coming summer. Jill nicknamed Yesenia “Hidden Face” because she often buried her face in her hands and rejected the simplest touch.
“On our last day, during the party, I encouraged Hidden Face to dance. At the beginning of the week she would not acknowledge my touch; instead she would jerk away,” Jill said. “As I held out my hand to dance, she reached for my palm and gave me her trust and love, which she had withheld because of the pain she has had to endure. God willing, I will return next year.”
Marta also danced—a feat for a girl with cerebral palsy who cannot walk, speak, or feed herself. Abandoned by a family who feared they couldn’t care for her, Marta was sexually assaulted while on the streets and later brought to the orphanage right after she delivered her baby. The baby was very ill and malnourished and was sent immediately to the hospital. Tragically, two weeks later, the infant died.
“Marta carried a doll as she mourned,” Karen said. “Though she cannot walk, Marta yearned to dance at the party. We took turns holding her up and swayed to the music while Marta pumped her hand up and down to the beat. We tired long before she did.”
“Of all the people I met, she impacted me the most and taught me so much about how to live,” Debi Newman, author of Loving Your Body: Embracing Your True Beauty in Christ, said. “Marta is kind and when she gets frustrated with a task, she laughs rather than cries. I want to be more like her. She didn’t seem to mind that she could not twirl around like the others; she was perfectly content to dance the way she was able.”
|
 |
|
“Most of us did not speak Spanish,” Karen said, “but we were able to communicate God's love effectively. Kindness and warmth translated without words.”
In light of the language barrier, Sheila Bracken worried what kind of impact their gifts, music, lessons, and games could really have on girls who had been so wounded as the girls at Manchen. “The reality is nothing,” she reasoned, “but we didn’t go there to fix them. We went there to practice the ministry of presence, to tell the girls of the power and love of Jesus, and to bring them the message: ‘You are beautiful in God’s eyes.’ Now we must leave the results to God.”
|
  |
|
 |
