Watching a beutiful thing unfold

A Reflection by Jono:

Its Sunday afternoon and we have been taken to an Aids Hospice in Poipet. All the patients who are well enough have gone back to their families for the weekend as its the water festival here. Its a holiday weekend.
When we arrive there are just four people left.

Perhaps their families no longer associate with them. Perhaps they are too ill to move.

We enter the ward and its a squalid place. There are dreadful smells and the few patients left are very ill.
In fact one lady is so ill we find it hard to be there. She is feverish and emaciated and with the help of our translator we move around seeking permission to pray with those who would like us to.
There is something about this young woman that touches us deeply. She is so young and so ill. We dont know whether she has contracted this disease through people exploiting and abusing her and here she is in the heat and the squalor.

There are flies buzzing around and she is weak and emaciated. We dont know what to say or do. There is just one lady left working in the ward over this holiday weekend and so there are no resources.
I watch Billie our team leader sit beside her and take her hand and pray the most beautiful prayer.
A tear drops from the cheeks of this young woman. Billie's voice and her tenderness seems to cross the language barrier as she prays God's love into this situation.

When we are confronted with suffering we often seek to distance ourselves and move away yet Billie takes it a step further.

She goes to the market and buys a cotton sheet to put under the lady's head. Its not much but it means that the sweat from the plastic mattress can be absorbed. We lift her gently and give her the choice of what sheet she would like.

My instinct is often to think thats awful. There's nothing I can do. Billie goes that extra mile and in so many ways embodies what i was speaking about yesterday morning. Seizing the one opportunity to make a difference in the life of someone who probably has little time left.