Not Cai's forever home.

The rehab center offers ~8 week programs for children (and their families) with disabilities. After that 8 weeks, they return home to their rural villages. I can only imagine the kind of emotions these families must feel. Leaving their homes hoping for miraculous healing. Going home with small improvements. To experience joy and acceptance (at the rehab) and then to return home to family pressures and shunning. Today I am thinking of the little boy, Cai, who I have spent the most time with at the rehab center, and his mother. During the last week, his mother was acting differently...she seemed depressed. She joked about selling her son away with the other mothers. Negative comments from a mother about her own child are not uncommon in this culture, but this time I knew something was different. She seemed hopeless. Brothers and sisters, may we be lifting Cai and his mother up, together?

Cai is a three year old boy who has servere cerebral palsy. He is very bright and happy but he has difficulty communicating because he is unable to produce speech; yet, he has no problem understanding. His favorite thing is story time. When he is alone he is often laying on the ground, because he is unable to crawl, sit up, stand, or walk. His mother loves him, dispite family and community disagreement, she left home to find help for her son. She was so relieved to find a place where her son was seen as a child first and not a medical condition. A place to learn how to be there for her son and to understand him better. She is the only one caring for him, 24/7. She is tired and worn. She is alone. My greatest desire is for her and Cai to know that they are never alone, and that they have the greatest everlasting love from our creator...that this world is not and will never be our forever home. Friends, as a new cycle of families come into the rehab center, and National Children's day approaching, please pr'y for these families. Also for Dan and I, we need wisdom but we also need boldness (when it comes to sharing about His amazing goodness and love).