May 2006

Dearest Friends,
Recently I read and meditated on,

“Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: To loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke? Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with Shelter –When you see the naked, to clothe him and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?“ (Isaiah 58:6-7), Religion that God the Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.“ (James 1:“27)

Little did I know at that time, that soon we would be asked to respond to those verses in a practical way, which would require our complete involvement for a time. Listen:

On the most recent clinic day, a grandmother (38 years old) brought in her newborn grandson (7 days old) due to a developing eye infection. However, the baby had a cleft lip and cleft palate as well, and was very dehydrated. While looking after the baby and talking to the grandmother, we found out, that the mother of the little boy, a 15 year old single girl, hated the baby, the man who had fathered the child, had abandoned the girl, and the grandfather of the baby wasn’t going to accept the baby either, due to the deformity and the fact, that there were already 10 of his own children living in the house. Besides, the grandmother had given birth to a baby herself a couple of weeks ago. Hence, everyone in the extended family, besides grandma, hated the child. Nobody had fed the baby since birth nor cleaned him up, in hope of the baby dying of neglect.

It was only because of God’s grace and mercy that the grandmother brought the baby to the clinic. Susan, the nurse practioner under whose supervision I work, drove the grandmother and the baby to their village (Yalu), talked and prayed with the mother, and, after presenting various options to the family to help care and raise the baby boy in Yalu, decided, with consent of the mother, to take the baby to her home in order to save him from certain death. However, before Susan left she asked me, if I would help her care for this special need child, until a foster/adoptive family was found. How could I say no, if life or death depended on it?

Thus, one afternoon we took care of the baby boy, whom we named Victor Moises. At one point he had a very high temperature. Susan examined his lungs and heart. We stripped him down as well, sponged him off, and, thank the Lord, brought down the body temperature that way.

What is in store for the baby? He has been placed with a foster family here in the city, awaiting legal abandonment by the mother. After that a couple in Michigan, friends of the foster parents will begin the adoption process.
In the meantime, after two months, little Victor will receive his first surgery from a specialist in Antigua. His lip will be repaired at that time. Two years later, he will have surgery to close the palate as well.

Please pray for the foster family, as well as for Victor Moises. Also, pray for strength and wisdom for us, that we will always do the right thing at the right time, with the help of the Lord. For I am sure, there will be other cases like this one in the future. To care for newborns here in the Tropics, is different from taking care of newborns in the Pacific Northwest.

Charles & Petra Wirrell
serving God by nurturing Missionary Kids at Christian Academy of Guatemala and serving the under-served of Central America

P.S. Since the writing of this letter, Baby Victor Moises has passed into the arms of Jesus.
I will post a picture of Baby Victor Moises onto our photo website: www.fotos.web.ce/CP_Wirrell