We’ve been preaching the gospel to the poor on the slums in India, since 1996. On a recent visit we found a girl sitting in the dust, unable to walk with pus oozing from four areas of her body, she was crying in pain… ‘Behold the tears of the oppressed’ (Ecclesiastes 4v1). Our heart is for those who have ‘no helper’ (Psalm72v12) and this poor desperate girl fell into that category. We took her to hospital where her wounds were drained and her healing process began and her story unfolded. Despite her small stature we learned she was actually 16 years old. Her growth had been stunted because of a broken back sustained in a childhood accident. She had struggled through life on the slum, enduring beatings for being ‘useless’ and now abandoned by her father, her mother brought her to the slum in our locality in the hope that we might help her.
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- Bagita admitted
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- Face abcess
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- Bagita smiling
After investigation we found she had been suffering from T.B for some time which was eating her bones away. Her left foot was so badly affected that doctors feared they would have to amputate but after a five week stay in hospital where a 24 month T.B medication course was started she stabilised. She learned to walk with a zimmer frame, then walking sticks. 6 months later, by God’s grace she is walking, running, skipping and hopping and wonderfully happy to be alive and part of our Morning Star family with her brothers but that is another story! Bagita is now a precious daughter of the King. Truly ‘He lifts up the poor out of the dust and sets them among princes, to make them inherit a throne of glory.’ (1Sam 2v8)
And we are sure he hasn’t finished yet.
Still smiling 3 years on.
Bagita 2016