It was broken and
beautiful. It was desperation and hope. It was pain and healing.
It was diseased
and dying and crying to live.
Unfortunately, I feel at home in hospitals. When your little
brother has a chronic disease and goes through three major surgeries in two
years, you start to get used to the place. Sleeping in recliners and blow up
mattresses with a handful of nurses and doctors waking you up checking vitals
all night, white walls and tile floors, sterile everything and the smell of
cleaner and antibacterial sanitizer, high tech equipment beeping all the time,
and lots of cafeteria food…
It becomes a way of life. It’s not fun at first, but you get
used to it. Eventually, I did, and I ended up loving the ministry aspect of
being there. I met several other children who had been in the hospital for
extended stays and spent time visiting them and their families. As difficult as
the situation was, I enjoyed encouraging and comforting them when I had the
opportunity.
hospital in Manzini, Swaziland! “This will be my ministry,” I thought. I knew
it would be hard, but I was thrilled we were going.
We walked into the Children’s Ward first. Cement floors,
filthy walls and windows, wooden tables for beds – 3 or 4 babies on each. Two
nurses for the 30 or so children there, and not a doctor in sight. Wire hangers
for IV’s and no other equipment to be seen. No beeping monitors, no breathing
machines, no noise. Only silence, and the sound of infants crying.
I tried to take it all in, completely overwhelmed. This
could not be a hospital! Nothing about this looked like a hospital. There was
nothing familiar about this experience…
And then she met my eyes.
A desperate mother. Her eyes were full of fear, so
overwhelmed, so broken for her child. They were the same eyes I saw in the
hospital at home. The same eyes searching for hope… the same heart broken and
worried… the same hands helpless to heal.
My heart broke for her. I went over and placed my hand on
her shoulder and asked if I could pray for her little boy. I held her hand and
placed my other hand on her baby. Another of my friends and I prayed with her
and her husband- for their child and for their comfort. As I prayed she sobbed.
When our prayer was over, I moved further into the room,
still overwhelmed at all I saw. Orphaned babies with no one to care for them. Mothers everywhere, 
staying with their babies
all day and night – 4 mothers to every wooden bench. They sleep on the cold cement
floor when they’re too exhausted to sit anymore. If they have children, they’re
either left alone at home or they’re in the hospital with them-mothers caring
for toddlers as they watch their babies dying on those tables.
The mothers can’t leave because then there’s no one to care
for their child. Sometimes the hospital feeds them, sometimes they don’t. Still
the mothers sit, and watch, and wait.
And sometimes, they scream.
My friend Lee was there to hear a mother scream… her baby was
dead. A single scream and that was it. No doctor rushed to its side, no one
tried to save it. There was no machine to hook it to, no specialist to call in,
no ICU…
Only a mother’s scream as her child’s life slipped away.
I found out when I returned to America that one of the
little girls I visited in the hospital with my little brother died. I felt
numb. Yes, it was a tragedy that she died. She was only 8… but she’d been
treated for almost 2 years by the best doctors, in the best facility, with the
best medicine. She’d had a room full of toys and books and games, with her family and
friends visiting constantly. She had a website that kept her loved ones updated
every moment on her condition and told them how to pray. The Make-A-Wish
Foundation sent her to Disneyworld. She even got to spend a day with Hannah
Montana!
The cancer still took her. Eight is still too young to die…
but she was fought for by hundreds of people, with thousands of dollars.
How are there children dying in Swaziland unseen and
unheard? Unseen – unnoticed in the corner of a room that’s full of babies,
understaffed and unequipped. Unheard – their cries ignored by all except their
mother- her scream to mourn the dead the only sound noticed and known.
God how do I make it stop? How do I bring healing? How do I
bring hope? How do I give them what they need? In a hospital where almost 80%
of those admitted die there, how do I help?
God show me how to give them hope.
The story above is from my trip to Swaziland in 2007. I found it while organizing files on my computer and realized I never shared it! I hope it moves you. We did not take photos while we were there out of respect for the patients, so I found these online. Even they don’t truly show the horrible conditions I saw. Three years have passed and the hospital is still the same. Ask God what He would have you do to fight for the children there.
