Story from the Honduras Eye Team Mission, February/March 2013
By Laura Barlament – printed with her permission
Hope
He’s only 13 years old, and I’ve never seen a boy that age look so sad. His entire body language says, “I hurt.” He’s thin and neat, his hair slicked down, his body stiff and hesitant. His mouth is somber. His beautiful dark eyes are open, but they see nothing. He is blind.
More than a year ago, a tumor was removed from his brain. The surgery may have saved his life, but it took away his eyesight. He cries every day, his mother says, because he can’t see and he can’t go to school.
His mother brought him to the eye clinic last year as well, and Dr. Kapperman told her that this blindness is irreversible. The American doctor has no miracle cure.
What can we offer the sad boy? As I continue to work in the dispensary, Amanda and Connie and Daniel and Teresa and several others take him into a sunny, private room off of the surgical area for prayer. He sits, bowed in the center of their circle, their hands gently laid on his thin back.
Prayer for child.
Then, he goes to see Dr. Mark. The tall man sits next to the small
boy, lays his big hand on his slight shoulder, and gives him a pep talk, translated word for word for Teresa. “God loves you just as much as he loves everybody else,” he says. The boy stands silently and somberly. When Mark stands and gives the boy a hug, he doesn’t react, arms at his side. Then suddenly, he grabs the tall American around the waist and hugs with all his might, beaming
with joy. His face is shining, and I think of the way I have always imagined Stephen in Acts 7, when “full of the Holy Spirit, [he] looked up to heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘I see heaven open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.’”
What do I see in this scene at the clinic? Through a healer and believer — one who has prayed, “Lord, prepare me to be a sanctuary” — Jesus shines out, even to one who has no physical sight. And the prophet’s words are proved true again: “A people living in darkness have seen a great light” (Isaiah 9:2, Matthew 4:16).
