RESCUE
salvar – Related to Span. ‘salvador’ Engl. ‘savior’
You’re in the whitewashed waiting room of the Hospital Metropolitano de Vivian Pellas; the rainy season is just beginning to cloud over Managua with unbearable humidity—it is 2006.
A malnourished 8 year-old girl named Suyapa Ruiz is rooms away from you, in her tenth surgery of the year at the best burn unit in Central America. Her skin is patchy like a quilt from grafts and burn scars, but you’ve fallen in love with the tiny smile and the deep black eyes.
Eight years, and all she knows is street begging. One peso. Two pesos. If she didn’t earn enough money, or behaved poorly, she was burned. Eventually she lost fine motor skills in her hands, as they had been burned beyond her body’s ability to heal. She could neither read nor write. She didn’t know her colors.
Eight years of intentional and accidental pain. Hungry and unschooled.
In June of 2006, Suyapa was taken from her family by the government child welfare agency, Mi Familia, and given to Verbo Church ministries in northern Nicaragua, near Nueva Segovia, her hometown on the border of Nicaragua. Verbo, in partnership with Casa Bernabe, secured surgery after surgery for Suyapa. She received the best medical attention in Central America, and was given a new home in Casa Bernabe, to live among other girls her age.
RESTORE:
1. devolver – Form of Span. ‘volver’ Engl. ‘(1) to return (2) to turn inside out’, i.e. ‘the anger and hurt were turned out’
Suyapa’s first weeks in the orphanage were marked by school vacations, and encounters with American mission trips. She witnessed love on a scale which perhaps she never had before. From the caretakers, from the children, and from gringos coming to Casa Bernabe from all over the U.S. during their summer, hugs and kisses and games and dances welcomed Suyapa into a new life.
It isn’t hard to fit into a new home when fifteen other girls your age are close by, and Suyapa didn’t feel awkward for very long. She spent her initial weeks at Casa Bernabe climbing the mamon tree for an afternoon snack, or playing UNO for the first time. She began to learn how love and affection were really displayed, and slowly—although it took years—her aggressive demeanor began to shift.
Suyapa didn’t begin by playing nicely with other children. Living on the street had been a tougher existence, and Suyapa wasn’t able to overcome that life so quickly. But she learned day by day how to befriend the other kids at Casa; how to play alongside them, and laugh and run and cry when she needed to cry.
She learned the hand-slapping games so common to little girls, and watched with interest as the other girls played jacks. She sat next to them and watched as the ball went up, and their hands darted down to pick up a jack. She sat for months, watching, and then she played. Her gloved, still painful hands regaining the fine control they once had.
REDEEM:
1. rescatar – Comes full circle to Engl. ‘Save’, related ‘Savior’; see also ‘Jesus Christ’
2. redimir
God says that his people will be well-watered gardens in a sun-scorched land. He promises joy and blessing. Suyapa is only now beginning to hear and understand God’s word. His love and heart for her is a completely new world in Suyapa’s life: as she goes to church with the other children, or prays before falling asleep—everything is a new experience.
Casa Bernabe gives Suyapa a chance to hear about Christ’s sacrifice—there are few more poignant joys than the surety that Suyapa can know a Father greater than any earthly parent will ever be. Despite a past beyond difficult, Suyapa can come to know Christ and in so doing, be rooted in a love deeper and wider than she will ever need. She is only now testing the waters of that well, but we believe and hope and pray that as she continues to hear the word of God, and experience the earthly vessels of his love in the staff and family at Casa Bernabe, she will dive freely into it.