He is the one that is singing the loudest, in fact he
screams out the words with all his heart.
He is at the front of the group of kids, jumping and
clapping and praising God.
He is the one with that melt your heart smile, always happy
and having a blast.
He is the one that
will show you his coloring page and on Christmas will show off is button down
shirt and tie.
He is the first to
arrive and the last to leave.
He is the one that always takes home a big bag of food to
eat during the week.
He is the one that doesn’t go to school.
He is the one, that towers,
head and shoulders over the rest of the kids in his table.
Carlitos is 16 years
old.
He has down syndrome.
He lives with his Mother, Step father and step-brother in a
tiny shack in Las Palmeras, the an impoverished village near where I am living
.
There is a school in Ancon for people with mental
disabilities, but he doesn’t go.
His Mother can’t afford to pay for the
transportation to get to and from there.
Carlos is hungry a lot of the time.
Even when there is food,
His stepfather would rather give it to his own son, and let Carlitos go hungry.
After all, Carlitos isn’t his son
. He is at the mental capacity of a 6 year old. He cannot
work or make a living himself.
So here he is, wandering the dirty trash laden
dirt roads all day.
Nothing to enrich his life.
Nothing to give him a chance at
feeling useful and productive.
I am praying that someday soon, God will put it on someone’s
heart to provide the finances, so that Carlitos can go to school everyday and
have a chance at success and growth.
But for now, he waits all week, and will come again next
Saturday to sing and dance his heart out in worship to the Lord.
After class,
he will take his coloring page and his bag of food and begin waiting until the
next week.
This is Carlitos. This is his story.
Well I pray this is
just the beginning of is his story.
The rest of his story… the part where he learns and thrives
and has enough to eat, just hasn’t been written yet.
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