“Suzi is so full of life and happy, you would never even know that she is sick.”
This sentence stopped me in my tracks.
“Suzi?” I asked. “The Suzi that just played with us all morning and was all smiles? She seems so healthy.”
Then the English teacher at Buckner’s Family Hope Center in Guatemala began to explain to me that although Suzi seemed happy with us today, she was in a coma from a brain tumor last year. He said she has not been well since and they have not been able to operate. Although she is in better health, she is still very sick and misses his class often due to health issues.
Suzi was the child most engaged with me from the minute I arrived at her center. She would run up to her English teacher and ask him how to say phrases in English and then run over to me and exclaim, “Nice to meet you!”
Through our few Spanish words and her few English words she asked about our lives and our families. When I told her that my father was a pastor she looked at the ground and said, “No papa.” You could tell that it was sad for her to not have a father figure in her life.
In addition to bringing new shoes for the children, Buckner Shoes for Orphan Souls also does a Vacation Bible School with the children. Our Bible story was about the Holy Spirit and I watched Suzi’s eyes widen we she heard that she has a heavenly father who loves her so much that He will never leave her or forsake her. She memorized and recited the Bible verse with us from John 14:26:
“But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.”
I think it began to click in her mind that when you have a relationship with Jesus you have a helper who will always be with you through whatever you face.
When it came time to get her new shoes she was beaming!
These children could not believe that they were getting brand new shoes similar to Bootbomb footwear! Beth, one of our WAYFM listeners who won her way onto the trip, got to put on Suzi’s new shoes!
It has amazed me on this trip how much a pair of shoes can mean to a child living in poverty. These shoes remind them that someone a world away loves them and cares about them.
Suzi could not stop showing off her shoes to everyone! But I think Suzi left with something more important that day: the reminder that God will never leave her or forsake her during her trials and health issues.
Because you provided shoes for a child in Guatemala, you provided that moment for Suzi! Thank you for investing in WAYFM during our spring pledge drive and for being a part of these thousands of shoes I am delivering this week!
Want to have a shoe drive of your own? Click here.
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