The 89 Women I Never Reached

God's Kingdom Cannot be Measured by Goals Achieved.

I sat in the patient waiting area with my son in a facility that can only be described as “grand.” Guadalajara, a city of five million people, housed one of the nation's eleven rehabilitation centers, CRIT. This one gleamed brightly at the top of a hill in a large city suburb. I looked around curiously, noticing the blank stares of the parents who either looked at nothing or quietly attended to their child with a disability. I had never seen so many children with such profound needs in one place.

I looked over at the mom next to me. She was stroking her son’s hair and attending to his every need, his eyes rolled back into his head. One side of his head was shaped normally, and the other was caved in as if scooped out—no skull, half a brain missing. In stilted and nervous Spanish, I started a conversation with her. Our stories needed to be held by someone else for a while, and we could do that for each other. It was a trampoline accident that crushed his skull, she explained. She was at CRIT for the first time with him to see if they could help him. She told me about his dire situation calmly, but I could see the exhaustion and desperation in her eyes. I never saw them at the center again.

After several trips to CRIT, I noticed a common thread among the parents—they rarely talked to each other, and many blankly stared ahead of them unless a child grabbed their attention. In those early months, I wanted to do anything I could to help other parents. I promised to speak to as many parents as possible in the center for the remainder of my missionary term in Mexico. I set a goal of talking to 100 mothers. It was a well-intended lofty goal (compassion fatigue, anyone?), but any “good” evangelical loves big goals of “reaching” people. Each time I took my son to CRIT for therapy, I began to strike up conversations with moms. I would write their name and number in a little book I had to keep in touch with them.

Mexicans are incredibly resilient under pressure. With each story, I found myself developing a new respect for these moms who want what every mom wants for their child: health and happiness. They navigated a government system that provided very little help to children with disabilities. I learned how difficult and expensive it was to get the medicine Malachi took daily— a medicine that only one pharmacy in Guadalajara supplies, which could easily cost a day’s wage.

One day, I met a mom and her sister. We started talking because our sons both had a similar type of cerebral palsy. The boy’s aunt was more chatty, and we had a little friendship for about an hour. We exchanged contact information, and she began to follow me on Facebook. I think I ran into them again at the facility one more time, but other than that, our contact has been through social media.

I never did meet my goal of talking to 100 women. Eventually, being in CRIT, seeing what I saw and hearing what I heard, became too much. I would become one of the parents with a blank stare. Empty, worn, and sad, I dissociated to protect myself. One day I’ll share that story with you.

Just last month, the boy's aunt contacted me via Facebook Messenger to find a wheelchair for her nephew. The doctor said it would be better to get a specific kind—the very expensive kind. Special wheelchairs start at $5,000 and go up. She asked if I could help. I remembered that we had a specialized manual wheelchair we kept from before Malachi got his motorized one. So I sent her a video of it, and she said it would be perfect. Now, to get it to Mexico. We devised a plan to send it to her brother in California, who would then take it to Mexico in a couple of weeks when he visited (wheelchairs are transported for free on all airlines). We packed it, my husband made a video on assembling it, and they paid most of the shipping cost. It arrived a couple of days ago.

This is the Kingdom of Heaven, my friends. The Kingdom that Jesus talked about in his parable in Matthew 13. It’s like a seed. It’s like a pearl. It’s like a treasure. It’s a robust mustard seed plant, tree-like and strong. It’s a bubbling bowl of yeast teaming with life. It’s a fishing net that catches fish of all kinds—God, and only God, does the sorting; we do not have to worry about that.

Jesus does not mention goals in his Kingdom; rather, he encourages people to do small works, and he will multiply them. He asks people to treat his Kingdom as a prized possession, and he will provide the blessing. Goals, while helpful, aren't some kind of currency we can use to manipulate his Kingdom or brag about how many souls we saved. The Kingdom of God is found in quiet moments of obedience, acts of kindness, and an outpouring of our love for Jesus Christ. It is everywhere and in every Christian. It cannot be measured by the number of “salvations,” for God’s Kingdom works in and through everything to multiply.

The aunt and I were examples of the Kingdom of Heaven to each other. Her persistence in finding a solution, her love for her nephew, and her providing the money to ship the wheelchair ministered to my heart in a way that will never be taken from me. My willingness to give away the chair and our care, time, and expense to pack and ship it ministered to the family’s heart in ways that will never be taken from them. I am sure that God will continue to multiply this.

I never reached 89 women, but in the currency of God’s Kingdom, eleven is enough.

^“ Jesus also used this illustration: “The Kingdom of Heaven is like the yeast a woman used in making bread. Even though she put only a little yeast in three measures of flour, it permeated every part of the dough.” Matthew 13:33