Cancer is Unbiased

Quick note: I wrote 80% of this blog about half way through our time in Indonesia and finished it in the Bali airport on the way to the Philippines. That said, sorry if the tenses are a little off. As I’ve been trying to remind myself, stories told late are better than stories not told at all. Enjoy.

 

My team and I spent our time in Indonesia working at a place called Ykaki.

It’s a home for children with cancer.

Our time here has been a huge contrast to my time trying to wrangle a classroom full of rowdy Togolese 5 year olds. The children at Ykaki are, for the most part, quiet and subdued. Understandably so- they are in the middle of chemotherapy.

There are only a handful of kids that we work with each day. Some days there might just be one – when the others are in appointments or too sick to play.

 

We come and just sit with the kids, play with them, love on them. We make origami together, draw, color, and sometimes even sing karaoke. We have spent time both at the children’s home where these kids live and sleep, as well as the nearby hospital where they receive treatment.

 

These kids are so sweet and they have completely stolen our hearts. They have such bright little personalities and big smiles.

It’s so hard to see their bandages and bald heads and know how much they are going through.

 

While some kids we have only seen once or twice, there are others who are there most days and who we have gotten to know pretty well. There is this one little girl in particular who we have gotten to spend time with most of the days we’ve gone in.

Her name is Margret and from day one she greeted us with the biggest smile ever. She is a little shy at first but very very sweet and can be pretty spunky and talkative sometimes. She has been fighting cancer for two years. She is eight years old. The radiation has taken her hair (but not her big beautiful smile), and her arms and legs are tiny and frail. After several days it occurred to me that she can’t walk and needs to be carried. (You would think this would have been apparent, but it seems very normal and natural for kids to be carried around, and much of the time we were with her we were in one room just hanging out, not much reason to get up and move around).

A few days after this realization, we were hanging out, coloring pictures of zoo animals (kids all over the world color pictures of zoo animals), and Margret was telling us a little about her home. Stella, one of the Indonesian volunteers, translated for us. Margret’s family lives on a small island with pink sand. Tourists come there all the time to snorkel and camp. Stella whispered in English “rich girl,” nodding affectionately towards Margret.

 

For some reason, this information was a little startling to me. I guess we have this picture in our heads of frail children in countries like Indonesia, and with this picture comes the picture of poverty. We are reminded of our privilege and challenged to take action. But here I was, in Indonesia, sitting with a frail eight year old whose family lives on a private island with pink sand (!)

 

Cancer is unbiased.

 

Sometimes we look at the problems of the world and just think if we could donate enough money, everything would be fixed. Shut down NASA, and use the money to feed the starving children. Don’t get me wrong- giving freely out of the abundance we are so blessed to have is very important. Jesus cared deeply for the poor and we should too.

 

But this world is broken on a deeper level than one that can be fixed by a matter of funding.

 

Yes we were there to love on these kids and play with them and make origami, but I felt very strongly that the biggest and most important part of our ministry was prayer.

I think the Lord put us in this place to challenge us to pray bold prayers of healing over these kids. While we played with them and spend time with them, we prayed over them. Before and after ministry, we prayed for them.

I am still praying that every child that we met while we were at Ykaki is healed of their cancer. I’m praying that this would be a huge testimony to the children’s families and to the people working there of the power of Jesus and his love.

 

While this month has certainly been emotionally challenging as my team and I cope with the concept of childhood mortality, it has been an important reminder to shift our view and keep our eyes set on the eternal.  

 

Isaiah 25:8 holds this promise: “He will swallow up death forever;

and the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces,

and the reproach of his people he will take away from all the earth,

for the Lord has spoken.”

 

2nd Corinthians 5:1 reminds us that this earth and our earthly bodies are temporary, and we have the promise of an eternal home free of sickness and cancer.

“For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.”

Most importantly, we must remember that the battle we fight has already been won. Christ has already defeated death and sin. He is risen and we are included in his victory!

 

One of the last days we were there Margaret asked what our religion was. We told her we were Christians and believed in Jesus. “Sama,” Margaret said, pointing to herself. “She says she is the same,” Stella interpreted for us.

I told Margret that this makes us sisters.

 

So please pray for my dear sister Margaret and the other children at Ykaki. Pray for their healing, pray for the muscles to grow and the cancer to shrink away to nothing. God has already defeated death and sin and pain, and we are to pray “your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” We have eternal victory, but the Lord also wants to bring his victory on this side of eternity. This squad has seen miracles before  and I know that we will see them again.

 

ALao please be in prayer for the squad as we head to the Philippines and as we work on getting the entire squad fully funded!

[Morgan posted a great blog with a guide to people on the squad who still need funding. Click here for a link to that]

As always, thanks for reading and joining me on this journey.

 

Much Love and God Bless,

-Hattie