On Tuesday, when I went to the
hospital, a few interesting things happened. Visiting hours at the
hospital are only from 12pm-2pm, so we only have two hours to visit with the
patience there. After being in the children’s ward for about an hour and a
half, I walked over to the women’s ward to visit with a woman and her two
sisters that I met the week before. One of her sisters, Thembile, told me that
they had been coming to the hospital every day for 3 weeks to visit their
sister who was suffering from stroke-like symptoms. Due to working with broken English
and no available translator, it was hard to find out what exactly was wrong
with her. The doctors thought she would be able to return home very soon,
however; when I saw her she was still too weak to sit up and drink a cup of
water. I had the opportunity to pray with them and ask God for healing in her body
and the strength to go back home. So this week when I walked into the women’s I
was so happy to see the bed empty and hear the woman in the bed next to hers
tell me that she had gotten better enough to go home just a few days earlier.
After I left the women’s ward there was only about ten minutes left before we
had to leave. In my mind I was thinking that there’s no way I have time to start
all over with someone new and get to know their situation well enough to make
any sort of a difference in their day. I was already tired and ready to leave.
But I went back to the children’s ward anyways. As I looked around I silently
prayed to God to show me someone who I can talk to, someone who I can really
make a difference to. When I turned around there was a woman looking straight
at me. She smiled and greeted me with a friendly “Sabona”. Lying in
front of her was a lanky child with an oxygen tube in her nose. I walked over
and replied with “Sabona, unjiani?”. Her response was in English, and
she began to tell me about the child in front of her. It turns out that it was
her grand daughter, her daughter’s daughter. Her name was Helelo (pronounced Shelelo
with the ‘sh’ through the side of your teeth). She is six months old and just
skin and bones. She has been vomiting and having diarrhea for two weeks. Her GoGo
told me that she used to be a healthy fat baby before she got sick, but now she
can’t keep anything down. The GoGo immediately accepted my offer to pray for
Helelo.
When I was done we started to talk some more and I noticed a small ‘V’ shaped
cut just below Helelo’s throat. Then another one down where the rib cage
splits. Then two more on each side. The GoGo got very agitated and upset when I
asked about the cuts on the child’s chest. She began to explain to me that the
grandfather on the father’s side took Helelo to the witch doctor to try and
make her better with the Muti. That is why it took so long for Helelo to come
to the hospital, the other side of the family does not believe the doctors can
help, nor God. When she found out about what the other grandfather had done,
she took Helelo to the hospital and prayed to God that whatever the witch
doctor did to her would leave and not do anything to Helelo’s body. GoGo told
me she believes in God and does not trust the witch doctors, or visit them. She
said she knows God heals and trusts him to take care of her and her family. I
was so happy to hear this and asked again if I could pray over Helelo, this
time specifically against whatever happened to her from the witch doctor.
As I was praying I could feel something inside of me stirring and moving with
energy that only comes from God. It is so hard to describe. It felt as if God
was putting the words in my mouth of what to pray over this tiny helpless
child. I could hear myself speaking but I didn’t recall ever thinking up the
words to say at the time. It was as if God was speaking through me at that
moment to rid Helelo of whatever power was given a foot-hold by the witch
doctor.
I left the hospital that day being so impacted by what had happened. In my
doubt, I thought that I was useless in the last ten minutes of visiting hours.
God has a way of pointing out when we are wrong, and in this instance he showed
me that these last ten minutes, what I thought of as useless, where the most powerful
ten minutes of my week!
