“What the Doctor wrote down on paper is that my 4-year-old son’s poor muscle tone and language difficulty is because of a lack of oxygen he had at birth, but what he later verbalized to me was that he thought it is because of the measles/mumps vaccine he had when he was a year old, so I don’t know what to think or how to help my son.” This mother was very confused about the cause of her son’s condition and why he could barely crawl at the age of four. She told my partner, Waffa, and I that her son’s physical ability was completely fine before he received the vaccine but that everything changed afterward. Although Waffa and I weren’t capable of telling the mother the cause of her 4-year-old son’s inability to stand and walk, we were able to show her and the teacher some physical exercises and stretches he could do, as well as some activities they could work on with him in order to boost his receptive language. These mothers here in China are rarely listened to about their children’s needs. Children who have disorders are considered shameful and are viewed as “monsters,” one translator told me. Waffa and I were able to listen to this mother. We were able to look her in the eye with concern, interest, and love for her son. We were able to listen to her about her son’s strengths and weaknesses, and were able to show her some activities in order to help him progress in his motor and language abilities. We gave her our time and our energy, and my hope and prayer is that she saw something different in our speech, actions, and the way we played and laughed with her son. Please pray that these mothers and teachers would be curious about the joy we had in serving them, and that they would come to know the Great Physician, the true physician, their true cure!
– Emy
