The Roberts: A little light

We joined one of our school extracurricular groups, Jovenes en Accion, on their visit to Hospital Escuela (a public hospital that is also a teaching hospital). They have a cancer ward there for children. So, the kids brought coloring books and crayons, books, and other little things to play with the children that have this often terminable disease to cheer them up for the day.

The drive there was your typical Tegus "first time" experience (or maybe it's just us!). It took us an hour to locate and park (near, not at because there's no parking allowed inside of the hospital) at the hospital that is only 10 minutes away from us. Upon entering the hospital, we saw the line at the emergency room filled with all kinds of people. As we turned the corner, we came upon the entrance to the pediatric cancer ward. There were two sections. The first we entered was for the new arrivals. It was a big room filled with about 20 beds of kids from the ages of 4-16. The families are required to be with them in the room, so several kids had their parents alongside of them. We walked to each bed, at first tentatively--working through our Spanish and trying to love on the kids.

Colin brought Dunn around to several of the kids--and the girls were so excited! One girl, Leesa, was only 13, but she looked like she was much older from this experience. She held Dunn, hugged and kissed him, and for a moment looked like she was well. We prayed for her (mostly in English), but she was desperate for any hope. The next section was filled with private rooms. There, we met Sasha, who was probably about 5. She was a big fan of both Dunn and the camera (as you can see from the photos below).

The final level in the cancer unit was filled with kids who came in for treatment either daily or weekly, so they didn't stay in the hospital for long. There room was like a waiting room filled with old, used bus seats to sit on. There, I watched the kids from our school interact with such ease that I was completely overwhelmed by their affection for the kids--and these were middle school boys! They played, they talked, they treated the kids as they would normal children and they were enjoying themselves.

When we left the hospital, Colin and I were saying that this is what we wanted to do when we first came here. We've got lots of ground to make up, but we're game! It was a beautiful experience, and just showed us again how little things like that go a long way.