Rich in Love: When God Rescues Messy People (13 page)

PART 3

rich in love

chapter 12

a new journey begins

2004

When I answered the phone, I recognized the social worker’s voice immediately. “I have a four-year-old little boy who has never been in the system. He was picked up from a meth raid, and he’s pretty frightened.”

I looked over at Domingo, and he nodded. “Of course,” I said to the worker. Not long after the call, we opened the door to the social worker, who was escorting a little boy with pure white hair down to his shoulders, rotten teeth, and a filthy mess of dirt caked on him. He had on some sort of water shoes, and he stank. I don’t know what I had expected, but I was shocked. The excitement of bringing in this child left, and fear took over. For a moment I didn’t know what to do, but then autopilot kicked in. “Come on, let’s go take a bath.”
 

He just looked at me, eyes wide. He didn’t say a word. Turns out he couldn’t talk well. Not only did he not have a very big vocabulary, he didn’t seem to know how to go up the stairs. He fumbled and looked confused and frightened at the same time.

I helped him get up the stairs to the big bathtub in our bedroom. I turned on the water, stripped off his clothes, and got him into the tub. He started to shriek and wail in a high-pitched sound so penetrating, our neighbors (whose homes are a distance from ours) could hear him. They said it made their blood curdle.

“Shhhh,” I said quietly, soothingly. “It’s okay. You’re safe here.” I slowly ran the water over his body with a washcloth, going deaf from his shrieks.

I thought I saw something crawling on his head and called, “Mingo! We need lice treatment.” Domingo went to the garage to the stash we had on hand and brought me a box. I had put on gloves and wrapped a hair-cutting drape around me to protect my clothes from the water and pesticide. Once the little boy’s hair got wet and flat, I could see a city of lice in his hair. I have seen a lot of scalp problems in my years as a hairstylist, but this was by far the most disgusting, disturbing thing I have ever seen.

I was dying inside and started to feel bugs crawling up my arms—whether they were or not. Throughout all the screaming, I kept bathing and rinsing, bathing and rinsing, five or six times, as well as giving him the lice treatment.

Then I saw something weird on the side of the tub. Looking closer, I screamed, “
Domingo
!” and added my shriek to the poor little boy’s as I watched lice crawling up the sides of the tub.

Domingo came quickly, looked at where I was pointing, and, as I wrapped the boy in a towel and helped him out, cleaned it up.

I wanted to pick the boy up and hug him to comfort him, but he was so infested that I held back. Instead, I took him to the garage and shaved off all his hair—which made him start the screeching sound again. This poor little guy had scabs all over his head from the biting bugs. It was really gross. He was only four, and he had to endure all this—and so much more we had no idea about.

I put the few pieces of clothing he arrived with into a trash bag, tied it up, and tossed it. One of the many rules for caring for foster kids is that you aren’t supposed to throw the kids’ clothes away. I didn’t care. I couldn’t have those lice infecting our entire household—or risk getting meth into our systems through contact with the contaminated clothing.

After we got clean clothes on this terrified little guy, George, now eight, put his arm around him and said, “Don’t be afraid, buddy. Do you want some milk and Oreos?”

“Gulk,” the little boy said over and over. “Gulk.”

Together the boys ate cookies, but it was clear the new little boy had never had an Oreo before. He was mesmerized, watching George carefully as he twisted the cookie, pulled it apart, and licked the frosting from the inside. The boy picked up one and did exactly as George had, never taking his eyes off him. I wasn’t sure how he ate the cookies at all. His teeth were rotten nearly to the gums.

“It’s gonna be okay, buddy,” George said over and over, calming the boy down. “Nothing’s going to happen. We’ve been praying for you.”

We learned his name was Kurt, and he had created his own language beyond his limited English vocabulary that we couldn’t remotely understand.

Before putting him to bed in George’s room, I encouraged him to use the toilet. As I closed the door between us I said, “Don’t forget to wipe.”

He was in the bathroom for a long time, and I got concerned. I tapped on the door a couple of times. “Kurt? Kurt, honey, are you okay?”

No answer.

After the third time, I opened the door and saw poop all over his hand and arm. Sometimes something catches you so off guard that you say something you wouldn’t have if you’d been prepared. “Kurt, are you kidding me?” I said. “What were you thinking? Didn’t you use the toilet paper?”

He looked at me, confused, eyes wide. I pointed to the paper, and he answered in a voice that sounded like a deaf boy’s. “I don’t know how.” Then it dawned on me. He didn’t know what toilet paper was for!

We gave him another bath. By the time we were done, it was really late. When I tucked him into bed, he said in that same odd voice, “I miss my mama.”

As always happened when a child came to us, my heart broke for this little lost child torn from his family and plunked down in a stranger’s house. I went to bed, not knowing what to do for him, and fell asleep with prayers for wisdom on my lips.

Within a day or so the foster agency let us know what Kurt’s visitation schedule would be. We took him to the small building in town where parents could have supervised visits with their children, and he seemed apprehensive. When his parents came into the room, they awkwardly reached out to hug him, but he clearly didn’t want them to touch him. He backed away, fear in his eyes. That seemed so strange to me. Most children, no matter how crazy their situation, still want their parents. Even stranger, within a week, he wasn’t asking for his mama and didn’t want to see her.

As the weeks passed, it became clear he’d had little training in the basics of life. The foster agency called him a feral child. Alone and neglected, he had mostly raised himself. As a result, he hated to be touched and would go into rages.

One night he woke, screaming. I ran to him and held him. “I was on the TV,” he cried. The next words came out slowly, and he stumbled over a lot of them. “The man had a camera. He took pictures of me. I was on the TV. The man was hurting me.” In time he would tell us more and that his father had been involved. The events, explained from a child’s perspective, were graphic even in their simplicity. You can imagine what those things were and how they would impact a small child.

His mom said she wanted him back, but she showed up to the visits high as a kite. She didn’t do anything the court had ordered her to do so she could regain custody of her son. Meth is such a wicked drug. This woman had come from a good, wealthy family and had a master’s degree—yet the drug had consumed her until she lived only for getting high. Nothing else mattered. Not even her son.

At visitations, Kurt continued to flinch or stiffen when his parents tried to touch him. It seemed clear his parents hadn’t hugged him much, if at all. They were awkward in how they approached him, and he appeared to be unfamiliar and uncomfortable with what they were doing. Soon, when I’d take him to see his parents, he wouldn’t want to get out of the car. During the visits he’d rage, screaming his high-pitched scream that put fear into grown men.

During those first six months, I fell in love with this unusual little boy. Despite the abuse he’d experienced, he had such an innocence about him, untainted by the world. And, oh, how he loved George. That relationship was clearly comforting for him. But I hurt for him because of the unimaginable pain he’d gone through.

One night after he’d had a nightmare, I said, “Kurt, do you want to pray?”

“What’s that?” he said in his thick voice.

“It’s when we talk to God.”

“Who’s that?”

“Don’t you know who God is? Who Jesus is?”

“No.”

I couldn’t believe that this boy had no understanding of anything spiritual. How could he not know who God is? I explained in as simple terms as possible that God was his Father and he created everything in the world. I told him about God’s Son, Jesus, and all the things he did for us. Kurt couldn’t talk very well, but I knew he understood. I explained what prayer is, and then I prayed with him.

He believed the gospel immediately and completely. There was no hesitation, no question that this was right. He accepted that God was with us even though he couldn’t see him. From that moment, Kurt’s faith began to grow. And I could see what Jesus meant when he talked about childlike faith in Matthew 18:4: “Anyone who becomes as humble as this little child is the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven.”

There are many people who study God’s Word for years but still don’t understand this message. This simple, feral child did! There was nothing to cloud or confuse this boy’s faith. He took the things we taught him about God and his Word as truth. If I said God loved him and took care of him, then he believed God loved him and took care of him.

Kurt’s faith put me to shame. Why couldn’t I learn to trust God in that simple, childlike way? I complicate my Christianity with too much stuff—and Christ’s message is really uncomplicated. I have to remind myself he didn’t use the educated Pharisees and scribes to share his message—he chose unqualified, uneducated fishermen. I forget I have all I need when I study God’s Word and see him in action.

chapter 13

blessed be your name

A few months after Kurt arrived, George developed a sore throat, so I took him to the immediate care clinic. The doctor told me he wanted to X-ray George’s lungs. I thought that was strange. Why would he want to X-ray his lungs when he had a sore throat?
He probably just wants our money.

The doctor didn’t tell me that he’d heard something unusual while listening to George’s breathing and wanted to check it out. After taking George’s X-ray, he gave us antibiotics and sent us home.

About a week later, the clinic doctor called, asking us to come in and get another X-ray. “I found a large spot on George’s X-ray, and I want to make sure it’s a spot on the film and not a tumor.”

What?
My world stopped, and I was frozen in time, unable to think, feel, or hear. Immediately, I took George to get his X-ray retaken.

“Mrs. Garcia,” the doctor said after he’d called me into his office, his face somber, “you need to take your son to a pediatric oncologist right away. There’s a good chance George has cancer.”

My whole body shuddered. An alarming sense of fear encompassed every ounce of my being. The words
my boy has cancer
relentlessly ran over and over through my mind. I was terrified. Shaking, I called Domingo. I could barely get the words out—“They think George has cancer”—before I started to cry. Tenderhearted Domingo also started to cry for our boy.

I met the oncologist in Sacramento, a nearly two-hour drive from our home. He gave me the grim news. “It looks like your son has a malignant tumor in his lungs.”

In a matter of hours they put George through all kinds of tests, and the diagnosis went from bad to worse. The oncologist did not give us much hope. I left the office to call everyone I knew at Cornerstone Church. They in turn called others, and the twenty-four-hour prayer covering for George began.

I needed to get home to care for Bobby, Missy, and Kurt, so Domingo started on the long drive down to be with George. That began a new tag-team system we had to use throughout George’s illness.

Both home and hospital were tough for me to deal with physically and emotionally. Kurt was a mess. He didn’t understand what was going on. The big brother he loved—who was his entire world—was suddenly no longer around, and Kurt was lost without him. Kurt was still so new to us, still struggling to understand the simplest things in life, as well as with going to the hated visitations with his parents. Bobby and Missy were going to their separate visitations, and then we had to deal with the emotional fallout from those visits. And being with George was a whole different type of physical and emotional trial.

One morning on my long drive to the hospital, I cried and pleaded with God. My mother had died of lung cancer within a few months of her diagnosis, so I believed George did not have long to live. “Why does my boy have to go through all of this? Why are you taking him, God?” I also said some not-nice things, letting it all out, holding nothing back. After all, God says to bring all our petitions to him, even our hurts and anger, so I was just being obedient!

“You already took one son. Why are you going to take this one too?”

Then the song “Blessed Be Your Name” by Matt Redman came through the speakers. As I heard the lyrics repeated—“You give and take away, you give and take away; my heart will choose to say, Lord, blessed be your name”—I realized I had been focusing on my circumstances and not on my blessings. George was God’s child; I was the steward assigned to care for him. God let me have George for eight years, and if he chose to take him, I would be forever thankful for the time George had been in our care.

The more I listened to the song and prayed, my pain slowly turned into joy because I trusted my God.

When I got to the hospital, the doctor told me he had good news. After running all the tests, they could see that George’s tumor was on his ribs behind his lungs, rather than inside the lungs. God answered my prayers. I had hope. George had a chance.

The grapefruit-sized tumor would take eight hours of surgery. Afterward, George would go through chemotherapy. I marveled that a week before, I was panicked because there was a spot on an X-ray, and now I was praising God that my son could go through chemotherapy.

As we sat on George’s hospital bed after they’d done the initial prep for his surgery, George looked at me with his warm brown eyes and said, “Mom, am I going to die?”

I have always been honest with my kids, so I had to tell him the truth. “Yes, George, there’s a possibility you will die.” I pulled him close. “Are you ready to stand before God?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Do you want to be sure?” I pulled away from him and looked at him closely. “If so, we can pray.”

He nodded. We bowed our heads. We prayed, and George made Jesus the Lord of his life.

Domingo and I sat in the waiting room while George was in surgery. “Domingo, do you think George is going to die?”

“No, Irene. I feel George will be okay.” He smiled. Once again this man’s confidence was a blessing to me. “Just keep praying.” He grabbed my hand, giving me the confidence I needed not to fear but to hope.

I prayed most of the time George was in surgery, and while I was praying I felt the Spirit saying to me, “George will be healed.” I thought my emotions were playing tricks on me, but I chose to believe anyway.

When the doctor finally came out, we were anxious to hear the news. It was, like most news of its type, both good and bad. “George’s ribs are so full of holes they look like Pac-Man has been in there eating them up,” he told us. “We couldn’t get it all, but the chemotherapy will take care of the rest of the cancer.” He paused a moment as he looked at each of us. “I took a biopsy. I’m sure it was malignant because of how aggressive it was. We should have the results of the biopsy in a few days.”

“Will he be okay?”

“With treatment, yes, he should be fine.”

All I could think was,
Our boy is alive!

I couldn’t wait to go sit with George as he recuperated from surgery. “Son,” I said the day after his surgery, “it’s evident God has a plan for your life. After all, this isn’t the first time God has been by your side, saving your life.”

He looked at me, his eyes wide, and he slowly nodded as he took in everything I said.

I took both his hands in mine. “You need to find your purpose in life and seek God’s will.”

“How, Mom?”

“Talk to God. Ask him to show you.”

George stayed in the hospital for ten days. Each time someone came in to check on him, we asked about the results of the biopsy. “The results will be in any day now” was the answer we kept getting. Well, “any day” turned into another week, then two, then three. When I called the lab, they told me they had to keep sending it back to be reevaluated because something was wrong. I knew people must still be praying for us because I wasn’t anxious.

It was about a month before the surgeon’s office called and wanted to see us about the biopsy results. That’s rarely a good sign. They usually give bad news in person. George and I drove the long distance, not talking much. Yet, again, I didn’t feel the anxiety I had when George was first diagnosed. I sang the words to “Blessed Be Your Name” in my head.

When the surgeon came into his office, he had a funny look on his face. He sat behind his desk and opened a thick file folder and flipped through the first few pages. I tried to be patient, trying to figure out what that expression on his face meant.

“Well,” the surgeon said, closing the folder, “the biopsy came back negative. There are no signs of cancer.”

I flushed with joy. “That’s wonderful! But why aren’t you happy? Is there something else wrong?”

“Mrs. Garcia, I do surgeries like this all the time. I saw the tumor. This one was especially aggressive. I
know
it was cancerous.” He shook his head, folding his hands on his desk. “I have no explanation for it.”

I leaned toward him across the desk. “I know what happened. God healed my son. When he was in surgery, I felt God’s Spirit tell me George would be healed. I know it’s hard for you to understand, but my God is the great physician.”

His eyes watered up, and then tears ran down his cheeks, but he said nothing.

“I’m a Christian, and there’s nothing you can say that will change this truth.”

I went home and continued to pray for the doctor, hoping we made an impact in his life.

About six years later, a woman came to town for a conference. She saw our salon and stepped in to see if she could get a haircut. I had a cancellation, so she was given to me. As I worked and we chatted, we discovered she was related to George’s surgeon. The woman was a Christian. She told me the surgeon had walked away from God. Then about six years ago, a patient had made an impact on his life, and now he was following God.

I told her our story. She said we must be the people he’d talked about because the stories were similar. She fully believed God used us in this man’s life.

You see why I keep taking in kids? God uses them to show me he is alive and working in our midst. How can I keep this a secret? I want to shout it to the ends of the earth! If I don’t leave my comfort zone and step out in faith, I will never experience the miracles God keeps showing me when I trust.

Through this trial with George, I also saw how my joy did not have to come from circumstances; it is a supernatural gift from God that comes when I begin to trust and praise him. Philippians 4:4 says, “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice!” (
NASB
). First Peter 1:6 says, “In this you greatly rejoice, even though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been distressed by various trials” (
NASB
).

God does not tell us to do something we are unable to do without his help! My hope is that when I go through trials people will see the joy in me. I know I will continue to cry, and the heartaches will come, but in the end I will have joy in my God and the salvation he has given me.

Kurt’s issues

George continued to recover, though he still required frequent visits to the oncologist in Sacramento. Bobby and Missy went to live with their father and grandmother. It took some time, but the scabs on Kurt’s head went away and we got his rotten teeth fixed. An emotional healing process was occurring in him as well, and we could see him learning to trust his new family. However, there were some odd things about him. One was that he didn’t want to be touched by anyone but me. And then there were his cars. The only thing that kid could talk about was cars. At four, he knew every model and car symbol. But it went beyond that.

“I’m pretty sure he’s autistic,” I told the agency. “He puts his cars in order, then moves them out, then puts them back in order, then moves them out. Over and over.”

They told me this was common with kids who have been abused. “He wants to be in control,” they said.

“No,” I said. “Out of all the kids, he’s the only one who
doesn’t
want to be in control. Yes, he wants to be in
charge
, but not
control
. There’s a difference.” Kurt loved being given a job to be in charge of. He was precise and meticulous about completing the job he’d been given, but he didn’t need to be in
control
of things in general.

“Look,” I insisted, “there’s something wrong with him.”

No one believed me. Although I hadn’t been around him for more than six months, I still knew this boy. I refused to settle for what they told me. Because I had been involved in special-needs ministry for many years, I had cared for many autistic children. Kurt had so many similar tendencies. I wanted him to be diagnosed so he could get the help he needed. Although we went to a special clinic, the doctors stuck with the mentally delayed diagnosis because he was unable to communicate very well and his movements were awkward and extremely clumsy.

At that point I let it go. My job was to keep loving and training this boy. Domingo and I would find his strengths and build him up from there. We would trust God to show us what to do next.

Kurt was growing by leaps and bounds. Sometimes he would even let me hug him. One day without thinking, I grabbed him and said, “Give me a kiss, handsome! Lay one on me, right there.” I turned my head and tapped my cheek. “Come on,” I said, laughing. “Smack it on right here.”

Instead of giggling and giving me a peck like most kids did, he looked at me and then put his head down. There was a look of panic on his face.

“What’s the matter, Kurt?”

His blue eyes wide, he shrugged his shoulders and gave me his mumbled answer for everything. “I don’t know.”

“Come on, Kurt, smack it on your mama right here.” I could tell he felt unsure but not uncomfortable. “Don’t you want to give me a kiss?”

He tried to pucker his lips, but he couldn’t do it. And then it hit me—he didn’t know
how
to kiss.

So I said, “Kurt, do you know how to kiss? Have you ever kissed anybody?”

“No …” He dragged the word out.

“Come here, Son.” I grabbed him and kissed him all over his head and face and said, “
That’s
how you kiss!”

I told him to try to kiss my cheek. His struggle was heart wrenching to watch. He had to put a lot of thought into what he was trying to do. He had to work hard, but he finally gave me a kiss. I had never known a child who couldn’t kiss. How many people have to teach their children to kiss them?