“He who receives you receives Me, and he who receives Me receives Him who sent Me.” Matthew 10:40

I have never seen a tiny baby with so many tubes going in and coming out of his body. He is almost a year old but he still looks like a premature baby. Perhaps it is a lack of nutrition. His mother looks anaemic too. Sometimes I wonder if there is something wrong with her and not just physically. She is the quietest of the three daughters. I do not believe she ever said a word to me. I thought that there was something wrong with her mentally and I am still not sure. Maybe it is because she has spent almost her whole life sleeping in the streets like her mother, the baby’s grandmother. She was the one who called us about Robert. She wanted us to visit him in the intensive care.

I asked the grandmother to join me in prayer. The baby heard my voice and opened his tiny eyes. He looked around and then made a distressed face before bursting out crying. However, it was completely silent. His grandmother explained that was because of the tubes. This is little Robert’s harsh introduction to life. I wish I could say that life is going to get better. It will in a small way for now. The doctor said that he was recovering and in a day or so he will be out of intensive care. Unfortunately, the sad truth is life will always be tough for little Robert. I prayed that God will help the little baby to understand that he is much loved and not alone.

His mother wasn’t in the room. She had stayed in the hospital two days straight and now it was his grandmother’s turn and then his aunt will take over. They have everything arranged. They are very organized when it comes to taking care of the children. This family alone has 6 children under five and all the mothers are under twenty one. There was a time when all of them slept in tents in the streets; all three generations in big one tent sleeping in the cold and dangerous streets. We actually helped them to buy the tent. It was the best option then. Now, they found a small room. There are several homeless youths who have done this. Recently, the government is giving aid to these families. It is not much. Maybe about two weeks grocery money. Some of the homeless youth and families now are taking advantage of this and trying to rent small rooms in the city center. Our ministry is developing in this sense. We now make home visits to these young people. The rent for these rooms are exorbitantly high and, of course, highly unjust. The rooms are tiny cubicles in an old house which should have been condemned ten years ago. To make matters worse, most of them do not have bathrooms and they share a communal one. The ones with this facility do not have heated showers and we are facing a cold winter right now. They have been forced to take cold showers. Most people except for the rich do not have running hot water. We do not have any in our apartment. Most people have electric shower heads which churn out some sort of hot water to make showering bearable in these cold months. The whole system can seem a little nerve wrecking for those who are not accustomed to it. It is like a electrocution waiting to happen. For us, this is just normal now. These showers are not cheap. Robert’s family could not afford one and consequently have been taking cold showers. We help them with part of the rent. Initially the grandmother was a little hesitant to ask for our help to buy a electric shower head. She did not want us to think that she is taking advantage of us. Robert became ill during the cold weather and I am assuming the cold water baths did not help. We made sure that they had what they needed. One of the youths who used to live in the streets is quite handy with installing them. He is one of the homeless youths who is holding a steady job but even then he can not afford to pay rent. Therefore, he still sleeps in a tent in the streets while working a 9 to 5 job. Sometimes he drops in on this family with some groceries and they feed him.

Robert would not stop crying. He was afraid and suffering. All I could do is to gently pat his soft tiny head and speak softly to him. He heard our voices and then calmed down. He just needed to know that he was not alone. This is the best we could do for him and not only him but for his whole family. Of course we could give a lot of unsolicited advice. We could tell them to have less children or have a better home or any other things that might be running through many people’s minds. It is easier when you are separated from the reality of these lives to solve problems. However, this family and the rest of the youth in their situation are not problems. They are people and they have invited us into their lives. We can see that life offers very little for them. Even so, they do not complain nor ask for much. The grandmother informed us that Maria, another homeless youth has given birth to a baby boy. We have known Maria and her brother, João, since 2013. They were young teenagers then and now she is a mother. She had no where to go and they have opened their home to her. We have no idea how they are able to squeeze so many people into such a tiny space. Besides the two single bed, they also have a stove and a sink.

Visiting hours in the ICU are limited to 30 minutes per day for non family members. We did not need all that time. It is a baby. There is not much one can say to an infant in agony. The grandmother accompanied us out and she apologized for asking us to help with the shower head. She said that we were the only ones she knew who would help. Although this sounds really good for our ego, it is not entirely true. I am sure that they can find a way. However, it reveals something deeper and special. They have received us. We are part of their family structure. They know that we will not make judgments on them. They have enough of that in this life. They need someone to help them know that they are not alone in this world. They need to know that even though their future seems bleak and even hopeless, God always sends someone to remind them that they are His children, too. With His Light they will find a way out of this darkness.