I believe Tess moved to Atlanta because her mother was ill. After her mother died, her life kind of fell apart. She admits that she made a series of bad decisions that have resulted in a fair share of bad consequences, all of which led her to where she is now.
Her medical records are a mess. She has hepatitis C, congestive heart failure, and peripheral neuropathy (a very painful condition resulting from nerve damage). She has had at least one heart attack and one stroke, is missing a few fingers (perhaps from frostbite?), has only one visible tooth, and has been told at least three times that she wouldn’t make it out of the hospital alive. And yet, she lives.
Each night she uses her broken body to climb up a palette, through a hole, down a ladder and over a fence to sleep here, a place she calls an “abandonminium”:
She shares her place with about 100 other people, and a few hundred more rats. The people, she says, use the bathroom on the floor, and refuse to help one another. The rats, she says, are as big as German Shepherds (we laughed, but she said she wasn’t joking), and will steal food right out of your hands while you’re eating. The people left her for dead twice, and she’s deathly afraid of the rats. And yet, she presses on.
Her prescriptions alone cost over $300 a month, so any money she possibly makes has to go towards meeting that need. Her family is gone, and the world treats her as dispensable. She will spend her day today finding food and what money she can, and tonight she will fight off the cold and the rats to sleep in utter filth.
And yet, she praises God.
The day we met Tess was the day that most of us truly went to church for the first time. Man, can that woman preach! She spoke truth to us about her life and about the Lord like I’ve never heard truth spoken before. Nothing was off limits. All that the Lord had given her to say, she said right then and there.
Choices. Life is all about choices, she told us. Choices, and giving praise to God. She is so thankful for God’s blessings in her life, and freely says that she doesn’t have any business asking Him why things are the way they are for her. With all she goes through every day, she never complains. She never sees God as anything other than the loving, constant companion He is. I think I can say that I’ve never met anyone who seems closer to God than Tess. She is the embodiment of that strength Paul was talking about in Philippians 4:13.
When she finished speaking, every kid in our group lined up to hug her and thank her (that's her with the backpack in the picture). She accepted them with warm arms and a personal word for each and every one. I’ve never seen ministry like that in all the years I’ve worked with youth. It truly was a moment from God.
Tess thanks God that she wakes up every day to live out her task on this Earth teaching the Word of God and preaching His goodness. There is no doubt in her mind that right in that abandonminium is where God wants her to live and minister.
Last Sunday our congregation sang “I’ll Fly Away”, and I thought of Tess. Though she is content to stay here as long as the Lord would ask her to stay, I will rejoice when she finally gets to go home and see Him face to face. No more sickness, no more holes and ladders and fences, no more rats. Just Jesus and an eternal home of her very own. Praise God for what He has in store for all of us!
I returned home to my three bedroom, two bath house with the sights and sounds of Atlanta still bouncing around in my head (and the smells still engrained in my clothes!). All of the stories touched me. All of the people were fascinating, but none compared to Tess. God was amazingly present in her testimony, and to be with her was to be in His presence.
Before Atlanta, I was quick to complain about the squeaky floorboards in my hall or the issues we’re having in our front bathroom. It was nothing for me to carry on about the back deck that needs to be repaired or my fears about the roof that seems to be warping. I whined about eating leftovers and about not having the “right” pair of shoes for that new outfit.
But I came home changed – with a new eye and a new appreciation for how I’ve been blessed. Maybe I don’t have my dream house, and maybe we won’t ever drive the best cars in the parking lot at church. But we are blessed far beyond our needs, and if it was all gone tomorrow Christ would give us the strength to praise Him all the more.
Just like Tess.
See you with something new in a couple of days.
1 comment:
Amen!!!!
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