Javier

It was so hot. But it was February in Honduras.  Today was our second village that the children's medical mission was visiting.  We we set up in a small church - pediatric medical on the left, eye exams on the right and meds and other things that we take for granted (toothpaste, toothbrushes, soap, bandaids etc) in the back.  We would see almost 500 children that day for medical treatment - for almost all of them, it would be the only time they saw a doctor this year. The villagers lined up outside the church, patiently waiting with their childen to see the doctor.  Many of the adults in line were there for eye exams.  Some of them with cataracts from living so close to the equator.  One elderly woman in her 60s told us she was blind; we did the eye exam, made her glasses and for the first time in her life she could see. She was not blind and I can't even put into words the emotions I felt when I think that she had gone over 60 years without being to see a tree or a bird or children playing in the street.

The village unlike yesterday's village and the village that would follow tomorrow was sad.  There was an aura of hopelessness and despair that surrounded and emanated from the village and its people.  I looked into one young woman eyes who was waiting to see the eye doctor and also the pediatrician, her eyes were filled with sadness.  She was there with her 3 children - she was 17.  Another woman was trying to make her way to the line with her three children and another woman was trying to keep her from registering.  The angry woman was yelling at her in Spanish and trying to forcibly block the other woman and her children from the church entrance.  Another missionary who spoke Spanish went over and calmed the angry woman down, explaining to her that everyone was welcome at the clinic - even prostitutes.  The young prostitute had three children from three different men.  She locked her children in the house at night to keep them safe while she worked.  If she hadn't come to the clinic, her infant would have died, probably that day. We rushed the baby to the hospital where she was put on IV and antibiotics.  It was to be evidence of a miracle on our trip.

The day wore on, hotter, sadder.  At one point I totally broke down in my friend Dell's arms.  Although we were doing good and giving people who had nothing the most that we could, it was overwhelming and could never be enough.  I am very intuitive - sensitive to feelings and emotions around me - my doctor calls that particular gift "hyperawareness" and the predominant feeling was despair.  It was crushing.  Most of these people would never have any more than they had at this very moment.  Most of the children would grow up in poverty and live the rest of their lives in poverty and dire need, bearing children at an insanely young age, always wondering where their next meal was coming from.  Tattered clothes, worn out shoes, rotten teeth, untreated health and eye issues.  More than half of the people of Honduras live in poverty.  I could never have imagined this in the 21st century until I saw it for myself.

Every once in a while in an attempt to catch a breeze, we leaned out a window and would engage the laughing children playing outside the church.  It was a holiday of sorts for them.  They were fascinated by us, strangers from a far off place that they didn't even know existed.  As we chatted via one of out Spanish speaking missionaries, we noticed a young man, a teenager, with obvious cataracts in his eyes but a huge smile on his face.  We called to him to "Come in! See the doctor!"   He shyly shook his head no, but we would not relent.  What is your name, we asked him?  Javier.  Come in, Javier!  It's okay - it doens't hurt.  We teased him. He stood there with his hands in his pockets, laughingly protesting.  No no, he says!  You cannot help me.  Well, let us see if we can, Javier! He pulls his hands out of his pockets - except he had no hands.  His arms ended at his wrist.  You cannot help me, he says again.  Shocked, we redoubled our efforts!  Javier, you must come in.  Let the doctor see you and let the eye doctor see you....please!

I could see that he desperately wanted to come in but he was scared.  Scared to of what he would be told.  He already accepted his lot in life.  Sixteen, functionally blind and no hands.  This was how it was - what could we possibly tell him that would change this?  At the same time though, I knew he wanted to come in.  That maybe he would be able to see again.  Finally, we went out and got him.  Two of us put our arms through his and brought him into the clinic.  He was shy, young, but filled with some inner sense of joy that was missing from most of his neighbors.  I asked him some questions that the eye doctor would need to know.  He had something in his pocket he wanted to show me.  He reached into his pocket and pulled out a piece of paper, unfolding it with his stumps.  His dexterity was astounding.

How did this happen we asked him.  He told us that he worked in a mine and there was an accident with dynamite.  He was 14.  That was his full-time job.  He lost both his hands in the explosion and was blinded not by the sun, but by the explosion.  There was no lawsuit, no workman's comp, no restitution, no accountability.  Only a maimed body and no more work.  This was Honduras. The day passed.  Javier spent time with the opthamologist and the pediatrician.  The doctors conferred and then they spoke to Dell, the head of our mission.  Javier could be helped.  It was decided that he would would be sent to a doctor in San Pedro Sula where he would receive surgery gratis to restore his eye sight.  It may not be perfect, but he would be able to see again.  Additionally, it was decided that the church would pay for Javier to be fitted for prothetic hands.  We sat Javier down.  He could not believe it.  He wept.  We all wept.

The end of the day finally came and we all fell into the vans exhausted.  Every bit of emotional, mental and physical energy had been given away in that church.  We were shell-shocked, bereft.  We had given everything we had and it wasn't enough, not even close.  That truth sat about us and to balance it against the hope that we had made a difference in at least a few lives would have to be enough.

It takes so little to change a person's life forever.  An act of kindness - our refusal to give up and let Javier walk away.  Javier was given his sight back and new hands; but what we received cannot be measured.  I still can see him clearly - the thick, dark hair falling over his damaged eyes, the teenaged pimply face, the long gangly body and the mutilated arms with no hands - but mostly I will remember the smile -  the big smile that reached to his heart.  Javier and the others, the baby, all the children in all the villages gave me a gift that I will always carry with me.  I am blessed with excess.  I have never gone hungry.  I have never wanted for medical care.  I can read and write.  I don't have to lock my children up at night to keep them safe while I "work".  We have a responsibility to those that have less than us - and so many in this world do.  Javier opened my heart, my mind and my eyes to the truth.  You can change the life of one person and maybe change the world.  The funny thing is, we didn't change him, he changed us. That's what Javier did - touched us all and in ways that I still can't fathom or understand, changed my life.