20 year old Maria (not her real name) came in yesterday for the second time in the last couple of months. She had lost more weight - was now down to 68 pounds. I knew that she had diabetes from her last visit. I also knew that she had not been taking her medicine. As I began to talk with her, trying to understand why she had not come back, why she was not taking care of herself, I began to realize that she was all alone. She lives in "the land of pigs" (affectionately named that because almost everyone there has big fat pigs living in their yards or on their porches) with her father. Her mother died many years ago and her father remarried. Maria had become the servant to her stepmother. She began to cry as she told me how her father said that it didn't really matter to him if she lived or died....that she was of no importance to him. He would not give her the Q12 (about $1.75) necessary to come to clinic.

Armando and I began to talk with her about her heavenly Father who would never reject her or leave her....that He would never withhold any good gift from her. She eagerly repeated the prayer of salvation with Armando and jumped up to hug me when I gave her a Bible.  We will give her a few hours of work each week so that she can pay for her bus fare to the clinic. That was the easy part...now we have to figure out how to do what Jesus asks of us....to make disciples. We encouraged her to go to the little church that is in her village but are not sure if there is a pastor there now. As Jesus said, "The harvest is plentiful but the laborers are few. Therefore, pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest." Matthew 9:37.

So if you think of it, pray for Maria....pray that she grows in the truth of her new faith; pray that she finds a church who will be to her what she needs now - a family;  and pray that the Lord heals her body. Thanks!