Robert, our 6 year old, loves to fish. We have a couple little ponds on the property and he’ll stay gone pretty much all the time (if we let him), with his little homemade fishing pole, fishing. He’s so cute. With his little rubber boots and his little loaf of bread in hand, he’ll ask me to tie a hook for him and then he’s off to go fishing, all by himself. The pond he likes to fish at is kind of out in the jungle too. But he doesn’t care and he’s not scared because his love for fishing outweighs his fear of being in the jungle alone. He’s even started this thing where he’ll catch a fish then he’ll transfer it into the pond that’s in front of Grandma and Papa’s house. I’m probably gonna have to stop him from doing this though. That’s the pond that we use for swimming at the Camp and nobody like to be nibbled on by fish as they’re swimming, right?
Anyway, we’ve just started doing some renovations at the pavilion (the building where we hold all of our services at the Camp) and I was walking around last night looking at the work that had been done and I looked way down at the pond (it's below the pavilion) where Robert fishes and sure enough, there he was, all by himself fishing. He was just having a good ole’ time too. So, I went back to looking at the pavilion and then as I was leaving I heard Robert crying and talking. Now, when we only had a couple of kids I’d usually go running to make sure that everyone was OK (if someone was crying). But, now that we have 8 kids, I wait until I see blood, hear a gunshot or something explode before I go investigate. Actually, when I heard him yesterday, I thought one of his brothers had shown-up down there and they were arguing or something. Again... when we only had a couple kids, I’d referee. But now I let everyone handle their own disputes until they try to involve me... my parenting skills have evolved, or devolved, depending on how you look at it. haha. Anyway, I heard him crying and talking and I was just about to leave but my gut told me to check on him. So I walked over to the edge of the hill (the pavilion sits on top of a big hill that overlooks the valley where the pond is) and I yelled down to him, “Robert are you OK?” And then he yelled back, “I have a hook stuck in my leg!” What’d you say? You have a hook in your leg? “Yes,” he yelled back. So I yelled down to him and told him to meet me at the house. (I couldn’t get to him from where I was.) So, he walked through the jungle trail and met me at the house. When he got there his fishing line was wrapped all around his right leg about a thousand times and the hook was dug deep into the lower part of his leg. So I cut the string (and bobber) off and then I tried to pull the hook out with a pair of needle nose pliers... nope, that thing’s not coming out. Man, I felt so bad for him too. He was being so brave. He was crying but it was just a small whimper... nothing over-dramatic like some of our other kids (or me, lol!) would have been doing. At that point there were only 2 options. So I explained them to him. I said, “Robert, we’re going to have to push the hook all the way through your leg so it pokes out of the skin and I then I can cut the barb off and pull the hook out or we can go to the hospital and they’ll do the same thing.” He chose the hospital because he said, “they’ll put me to sleep there.” I told him they don’t put you to sleep for stuff like that and he was pretty disappointed. I was feeling pretty helpless at that point because I did NOT want to have to drive him to the hospital, that’s one thing I was sure of. Brazil+hospital waiting room+ no air conditioning= misery.
I had thrown-up one of those half-hearted Hail Mary prayers as soon as the whole ordeal occurred earlier. You know the kind, right? It’s one of those where you say something like, “God please help me,” and that’s pretty much the extent of the prayer. You don’t stop to think about it or even really feel like there was any real “faith” attached to it. But you ask God nonetheless. You know what I mean, right? Well I had thrown-up one of those prayers and now I had nothing else to do except go to the hospital. But then I felt like I was suppose to try pulling it out with the needle nose pliers one more time. Even though it was sunk deep into the muscle and the barb wasn’t allowing it to “back-out” I felt like I was suppose to try. So I gently gripped the hook with the pliers, and barely put any pressure on it at all and it slid out. It actually freakishly slid out. Like a hot knife moving through a stick of butter. It came out so easy that I knew that God had answered my half-hearted prayer. It was awesome and we all stopped to collectively thank Him. Nobody had to say anything to the other person... we all literally thanked God out loud at the same time. We just knew it was Him who helped us: )
It sounds trivial, I know. But when you know that God mercifully hears the small cries for help (not just the long orations that we put together sometimes), it amazes me. He’s so good.
I’m getting our first E-Newsletter of 2012’ ready to send out tomorrow to all our ministry partners. So, if you don’t already receive them, shoot me an email and I’ll add you to the list. (The email address is HopeAndLifeBrazil@gmail.com)
We love you guys and we’ll talk to you later.
The Mighty Prayer Warrior,
Jim : )
PS- The pictures at the top are of the pond that Robert fishes at (as you're looking down at it from the pavilion) and the other one is of him right before he went fishing this morning... all by himself, of course: )
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