Delmi

Many of the kids are now home for the Christmas holidays, but a few special ones remain.  These are the children who have no family to go to, or those whose families can't or won't care for them.  It's kind of sad around the children's area right now as those who remain cope with being left behind.  This month I want to introduce you to some of my special friends, and ask you to pray that Jesus will step into their loneliness and comfort them.  For those of you who wonder how I can decide not to be with my own children and grandchildren during the holidays, I hope that meeting those I will spend my Christmas with will help you understand.

 Delmi is the first young lady I want to introduce you to.  About a year ago I posted a powerpoint I had done, based on a story my friend Dick Rutgers wrote about Delmi.  This is as good a way to begin as any I can think of:

                              Click here for Powerpoint

I have to confess that when Dick sent me this story before I moved down, I had to think very hard to remember Delmi.  Like most volunteers, I walked past her, though vaguely remembered who she was.  When I traveled to Guatemala in April, 2009 with some teens from Westside Church, one of my main goals was to get to know Delmi.  I soon discovered many beautiful things about her, especially that she loves to be sung to and especially comes alive when you do motions to the songs you are singing to her!  During this trip, Delmi became my focus, and I was blessed by getting to know her.

Pat and Delmi, April, 2009

Now that I am here, Delmi still often gets lost in the shuffle of many kids who are more mobile, verbal, demanding.  Once in a while she will cry out in loneliness and then I finally remember to include her in what we are doing.  She has not done many of the "activities" yet, but loves to sit with the children who are working, watching what they are doing, and being talked to now and then.  It takes so little to make her happy.

Now that she is one of the few left behind for Christmas, I'm making a concentrated effort to spend time with her.  Often, because she chews on her hands, as in the opening photo, her arms are placed in rigid plastic splints.  My heart breaks to see these on her, though I know her hands would become raw and bleeding if they were not used.  I know, though, that when she is receiving enough attention, she does not chew her hands. . .

My hope for her is that during this month, is that she will learn to use her hands in other ways. . .if only to hold a toy to chew on rather than her fingers.  So we've begun working on this, starting with holding a sucker.

Once again, I am forced to confess how I have underestimated our kids.  Last Monday I took Delmi to Pollo Campero by herself.  It was a sweet time to spend just with her.  She really liked the mashed potatoes, and seemed to especially enjoy "deciding" if she wanted to eat or drink.  No, she couldn't "tell" me in words, but after only a few minutes with her I learned to follow her gaze to what she wanted.  This is one of those things that I've missed in only spending time with her with other kids around.

After we ate, I just didn't want to go straight back to Hermano Pedro, so decided to buy her a sucker and sit in the park and see what she would do with it.  I don't know if she'd ever had a sucker before, but am pretty sure she had never held one herself.  It took about two times of me helping her hold it for her to figure out how to grasp it and even get it to her mouth!  She would only hold it for a few "licks" and then drop it.  I wonder what the Guatemalans in the park thought of this crazy gringa, darting back and forth around her wheelchair catching the sucker before it hit the ground.  So today, for the first time to my knowledge, Delmi meaningfully used her hands for more than self-stimulation.  I don't know that my feet ever touched the ground as we walked back to the orphanage, I was flying so high.  Not because I had done anything that special, but because a part of Delmi was released today.

Last Thursday Dick had called inviting me to join him and some of the kids for lunch at Camperos.  He'd signed out Delmi, and I was excited to see what she would do this day.  I'd thought ahead and brought with some small silverware for the kids to use.  I hadn't really planned on using it with Delmi, but while we were sitting there, I thought, "Why not?"  So, I would put mashed potatoes on the spoon and hold it in front of her.  When she would reach for it, I would help her grasp it, and she began feeding herself.  Granted, she needed a lot of help getting the food on the spoon, but she held on to the spoon for all she was worth!  She knew exactly what she was doing, and only dropped the spoon once.

As you're reading this, you may wonder why this is such a big deal.  I'd ask you to reflect for a minute on what it would be like not to be able to feed yourself.  Not to have a choice of what food, if any, would be put in your mouth.  What it would be like to spend hours with your arms rigidly splinted, unable to scratch your nose if it itched.  This is much of Delmi's life.  I believe this simple success is one of the ways Jesus is setting this particular "captive" free.  Praise be to Him, Our Deliverer.

Delmi at Pollo Camperos