a mother’s love

 

Philisiwe is a lady that we spend time with every
week (see
the pic). She has TB and can’t hear us well because her injections clog
her
ears. Also she doesn’t speak much English and our Si-swati is uh… basic
to say
the least. Fortunately, we didn’t let that detour us from spending time with
her. Every time I’d pick her a flower and try to communicate with her
how
beautiful she is. We would also read scripture over her and pray with
her just
hoping that God would fill her room with His presence and somehow be
made known
through our insufficiencies.

A few weeks of visiting her passed and finally we
got a
chance to actually talk with her, with the help of one of our translators
Zanelle. Philisiwe is an incredible woman that has been through a lot.
We
learned that her husband died back in 2003. I can’t even begin to image
that
pain. Her husband, the man that she planned on loving and spending the
rest of
her life with, is gone. She is a mother. A mother, that as most mothers
do,
worries about her 2 children all the time. But here’s the difference. She has no contact with them at all
and she
doesn’t have money for them to come visit her. Her kids, being kids, don’t
understand that and feel like their mom has abandoned them. They don’t
realize
how much she loves them. They are upset that she doesn’t give them shoes
to
wear to school. I saw heartbreak in her eyes as she told us this. She
longed
to be a good mother and to hold her children and love them as a mother
does. (Zanelle
being awesome like she is, bought her shoes to give to her kids.)
Mothers can
you imagine what it’d be like to be sick, helpless and not be able to
take care
of your own children. Its got to be one of the worst feelings in the
world. Our
hearts broke a little bit for her that day…

The next time we visited her we were excited about
our
blooming relationship with her and shared verses with her about the hope
that
we have in Jesus and how we shouldn’t worry about things because God is
in
control. She was very appreciative and agreed with us that Jesus would
take
care of her and her family. There is hope!  As we spent more time with
her that
day we inquired more about her sickness. She told us that she has been
at the Hope
House since last March. This mother has been away from her family for a
year…
The doctors originally told her that she would be home by November but
now her lungs
are deteriorating and they aren’t certain when she’ll get to go home. I
don’t
know how she does it. Can you imagine how horrible it would be to think
that
you were getting to go home soon and now 5 months later she is still
sick and
getting worse at that. She feels like she is letting her children down
and
being a bad mother. She is a hindrance to the people who are paying for
her to
be at the Hope House. She is helpless.

Here sat before us a mother who hurt for her children,
that
felt like a burden to people taking care of her and didn’t know if she’d
ever
get better. Bheki opened his bible and read Psalm 100 to her. “Know that
the
Lord is God. It is He who made us and we are His.”  As Bheki read that
and spoke
to her in Si-Swati Tori and I started crying. Our hearts had broken. We
just
sat there with tears in our eyes. No words were said and no words needed
to be
said. This was one of the first times that I’ve felt really really
desperate
for God to do something. We were desperate for Him to move. He had to!
We have
been given authority to heal through Jesus Christ so we cried out on her
behalf
that He would heal her. That God would be who he says he is. We are
desperate
for this mother. God has got to do something! Please, please, please
make it a
point to pray for Philisiwe (phil-a-sea-way). That God would heal her
and
restore her to the beautiful woman and mother that He created her to be.
Our
hope is in you Lord! His timing is perfect and He will show up. We will
not
lose heart but we will wait patiently for Him!

“Our God is healing, Awesome in power. Our God!
Yes, Our
God!”