Helpless in the Hospital.

Last Friday was a day a lot like this past week has continually been. The heat is unbearable, and people aren’t sleeping. So heading into women’s ministry that night we were given the choice of staying back and doing intercessory prayer, or actually going to the park. Everything inside my head was making all the excuses to not go to the park. I was extremely tired, extremely drained emotionally, and I didn’t know if my heart was even in the right place for interactive ministry. But, something in me immediately spoke up and volunteered to be one of the six people who ended up going to the park that night. When we arrived, it seemed more eerie than normal. The only word that comes to mind is Empty. One of my teammates, Kristen, prayed specifically for a woman named Som to be at the park that night. She has come to a few English classes with her seven-year-old daughter, View, and is a regular at the park who we have formed a pretty cool relationship with thus far, but we hadn’t seen her in a while. God delivered. Som and View walked up to us, both looking weak and sickly. View instantly clung to my teammate Terra and Som walked over and sat down next to some of our group and our translator, TookTik. Som has had health issues for a while now, as many prostitutes do. She had been coughing up blood, an indication of Tuberculosis, and with View beginning to get sick, it was a possibility she had it too.

They don’t have money. They are homeless. Som’s husband is in prison. What can they do? Just let it progress to the point of death? I think the six of us looked around at each other, knowing full well what we wanted to do, and what we were capable of doing. Let’s go to the hospital. Whatever the cost, we will try to help them.

The faces of everyone in the hospital were ones of confusion and curiosity. What are six white girls doing with a Thai prostitute and her barefoot seven year old? As some of my teammates took View upstairs to pediatrics, the rest of us sat in the main waiting room with Som, receiving looks from everyone that passed. At this point I didn’t really know what was going on in my head? What realistically can I actually do? I just remember praying over and over “God, please show up. Please give us favor.” I didn’t know what else to say or ask. A nurse came over and Som, with my teammate and our translator, went to go get tests. Three of us continued to sit in the waiting room. I don’t think I have ever felt more helpless or incapable than in the next hour that followed. They ran tests. I sat, continually getting stared at by everyone walking past me. Some of my teammates came down from pediatrics saying they couldn’t definitively say what View had until they knew what Som had. If she had TB then View did too. Then one of my teammates, Amber, said “…and if she does have TB then we all will need to be tested for it as well.” I’M SORRY, WHAT?! Apparently, TB is an airborne disease, and because of our close proximity with the both of them, it was possible. What if I have TB? What is even happening? Am I going to die? What are they still doing in that room with Som?

And then Som walked out crying. My stomach and heart simultaneously fell on the floor. Som sat outside the room for what seemed like hours, but was probably only a few minutes, and the three of us in the waiting room just looked around at each other like, why are Kristen and TookTik still in the room with the doctor and Som is outside? They came out of the room, and you know what the doctor said? They don’t know. THEY DON’T KNOW?? Isn’t this your job? I was angry. I was frustrated. I was scared, we all were.

And then God hit me in the face with a brick. “How scared do you think she is, Hayley? How shameful do you think she feels that she can’t take care of her child, and even herself? How frustrated do you think she is that they can’t help her?”

Som is a prostitute. It was obvious by her clothes, by her barefoot child, by the darkness of her skin. She barely had identification and no insurance. Why she walked out of the room first? The doctors wouldn’t even tell her what was happening to her own body, or what needed to happen next. They told our translator and my American teammate instead. How is that right? How is that fair? They said she would need to go to the government hospital where they could run more tests and know more, but it could be a number of things. That is more money and time they don’t have, when I am sure this hospital had every capability to help her.

What if I had walked in with the same symptoms? A white American girl with international medical insurance comes walking in – I would bet my life that everything would have played out different. They would have done a full exam. They would have run all of the tests. They would have actually helped me. Why should it be different? I am just as much a human being as Som. She deserves the exact same medical treatment that I do. And because of her occupation and circumstance you aren’t going to help her? My initial thoughts were “Shame on you,” but I had to take a step back and realize I was in a completely different culture, where roles of women and men are backed so heavily on tradition and severe inequality. This is normal. This is acceptable for them.

So, what now? What could I do to fix this awful, and somewhat impossible situation? The answer is — I can’t. I have no capability here to get them help in the time I have left. It would take Som going back to her village to get government forms, and then going to the local hospital to get a referral to the government hospital to be able to get free insurance. This entire process takes more than six months, and by that time it could be too late for Som if it is, in fact, Tuberculosis at the stage it is already at.

As frustrated as I am with the whole situation, I know God had a purpose that night. Why were there only six of us there? Why did I say I would go to the park when everything in me didn’t want to? I think all of this was to teach me that prayer isn’t a cop-out, like I think a lot of the time, that even though I am completely incapable of helping them, God isn’t, and if the whole situation has the outcome I presume that it will, we were capable of showing Som and View love — a love that could transform their life forever. If this horrible, helpless moment was exactly how God intended to reveal Himself to Som and View then I have to believe all of it was worth it. I don’t think I could ever forget both of them in their medical masks, with tears in their eyes, saying “thank you, thank you” as we dropped them off because we paid their hospital bills that night.

When people say, “All we can do is pray,” I think have a new heart for those words because in this, I’m not giving up on action because I don’t want to do it. I’m giving it all to God because I am incapable, but our prayers are not.

much love,

HAYLEY

03.10.16