Heng's tears

Heng

Yesterday morning was our second day back at the Healing Home. Friday mornings are dedicated to staff training when as many staff as possible gather. We spent the first hour talking about what God had been doing in the Healing Home - and in their personal lives - over the last two months. Heng was a recurring tale in these God-stories.

Heng has now left the Healing Home to enter into a rehabilitation program in the province. When he came to us in September 2010, Heng cried every day in despair and hopelessness. When he left just prior to Khmer New Year in April, Sopheap told us how he wept - because of the goodness of God to him.

A Word and worship man - Heng has taken to Jesus like a cat to kawhai. Every day we would hear him singing and reading the Bible out loud. Remember, he only ever did two years in school, so he was amazed that, when he picked up a Bible, he could read it!

We heard the girls tell us how the organisation was not sure if they could take him. On their third visit to see him, an American man accompanied the Khmer staff. He asked Sopheap if she was a believer and suggested that they pray together. They did - and when Sopheap said 'Amen' the organisation leader said 'we will take him to our program'.

First up, Heng spends three months in a village, receiving massage and fitting in. Sopheap went to see him and bring him monthly support for food and necessities. Here's where the fun starts. Every day, Heng has people from the village come to see him. He's full of the Lord and not ashamed. The Khmer doctor doing the massage is now reading the first book in the Christian foundations course. Further, Heng is out and about in the village every day, getting among the people in his wheelchair.

This story started with Rithy, a trainee doctor who lives with Graham and Sue Taylor and Sue Hanna, coming across Heng in a corridor of a local hospital. Newly paralysed from a construction site fall, and without money or family, he was being left to die. We stand on tip-expectant-toes to see where Heng's story will go from here!