Tuesday, April 07, 2009

God at Work at Diabetes Camp

What a powerful experience! I just spent this last Saturday, Sunday and Monday at a nearby mountain campsite with about 95 members of the Fundacion Esperanza--the only foundation for kids with diabetes in Mexico.

My good friends and co-workers, Gerardo and Carola Garcia began this foundation after their daughter Melonie was diagnosed with diabetes. Now, almost four years later, a team of parents, friends, doctors, pychologists, social workers and nutritionists have come together to provide encouragment, education and support for families like them.

One of the projects of this Foundation is to put on a camp two times a year for recently diagnosed kids and their parents from the Guadalajara area. A little over 30 kids and their parents attended the camp this past weekend.
At the camp, the parents were offered intense education and training on how to cope and how to care for their child with diabetes. They were led to express their pain and begin a road to acceptance and healing.

At the same time, the children were cared for and educated in the basics of this disease. Through classes, activities and conversation they too came to understand diabetes better and to begin to accept their reality and move forward.

It was fun to see God at work here! It was powerful to see how God is using the Garcia family to connect a group of people around a common pain and a common hope. It was powerful to see how God is using them to show Christ's love and healing in such a natural way--in a way that flows so clearly out of their own suffering and out of the consolation that they have found in Christ. It was powerful to see so many who are finding purpose in helping others. It was cool to see how Christ was so obviously seen in word and deed.

I pray for God's continued work here...for the healing seeds that are being planted!