A HEDS UP for Los Ninos Success Story
Marta Filomena Puaul Saguasch
In February 2003 the medical mission group of DOCARE International visited a small village Xeaataan Bajo near Patzun Guatemala. We met Marta who was 11 years of age and had lived her entire life sitting on her legs and unable to walk because congenital birth defects. She had to use her arms and hands to move around the dirt floor of her house and if she went anywhere, she had to be carried on her mothers back. Above, Nailah Thompson one of the medical students on the mission encourages Marta.
Marta literally lived in the dirt much of the time and could not attend school or go places with her friends. We knew her life would be better if we could get her a wheelchair but we really did not know how we could get her one.
In June of 2004 we were again in Guatemala and during an evening bible study, I asked an American man that I had just met, what he did in Guatemala? He replied, "I work with a group called Hope Haven located in Rock, Iowa and I get kids wheelchairs" God truly was answering prayers for Marta!. I told him "I have a child that really needs one, but I have to go and find her". Two days later, we visited her village and found her again, as beautiful as ever, but sitting in the dirt. It was evident that Marta was not alone, she had a large family and many friends but she could not easily leave her house. She had grown a lot in the past 16 months and she was too big to carry on someone's back. What a joy it was to tell her .It may have taken us a while but we have found you a wheelchair! Days later it was delivered.
My new friend Dick Rutgers and Chris (below) had brought her a new wheelchair! Marta did finally get a wheelchair. It will surely improve the quality of her life. But, that isn't the end of this HEDS UP for Los Ninos Success Story!  Perhaps Dick could better tell you the rest of the story from his diary: "Today Marta got her wheelchair. The total experience of meeting Jim and his finding out that we could supply a wheelchair for a girl that he had met over a year ago was far more than luck. God once again put things together in such a perfect way that Chris and I could definitely feel His presence throughout that day. Was it luck that made me get the spelling in the name of her village off by one letter to perfectly match the name of another village only a few miles from hers? Was it luck when we stopped there to ask for directions, that there was a little boy of six just across the road that needed a chair? Or the fact that once we did find the right village and had given Marta her chair that her father rode with us to the home of a bright little four year old that could not walk? The boy's mother at one time had taken him to see a doctor but the doctor told her not to waste her money on a child like that." "Jim you told me last night by email that if we could get Marta a wheelchair it would be the highlight of your trip. You also told me that you knew that God had laid everything out perfectly for it all to come about. I want you to know that today has been one of the highlights of mine. Thanks to what some people call luck, within a few days there will be three more children within a few miles of Marta receiving wheelchairs! We have also invited each of these kids to camp in November." " Is our God good or what? " You can be a part of HEDS UP for Los Ninos by helping children such as Marta. To see how you can help, Click Here |
