At six in the morning, a small loudspeaker hanging from the corner of the ceiling plays the gentle notes of a hymn to God, greeting a new day. The morning sun shines into the room, sparkling on the tiny crosses dangling from the collars of girls just eighteen or twenty.
As on any other day, at the 19/3 Centre for Orphans and Children with Disabilities run by Priest Nguyen Dang Dien – Nghi Loc parish, Nghi Dien Commune, Nghi Loc District, Nghe An Province – after morning prayers, the Sisters diligently and gently care for the unfortunate people in the sick rooms.
“Caring for and serving ordinary sick people is already hard, and it is much harder with children with disabilities. Although they have suffered physically since birth, they are also human beings, persons like any other human being, and they always long to be shared with and loved.” Sister Maria Damiano Pham Thuy Quynh shared this as she spoke of the quiet work of nearly 20 Sisters of the Missionary Sisters of Our Lady who are daily devoting their youth to caring for children with disabilities at the 19/3 Centre for Orphans and Children with Disabilities in Nghi Dien Commune.
Lives that are not whole
The story of sharing between faith and life began one Sunday morning more than 10 years ago, on the familiar road home after the weekend prayer service. Passing a small house, Priest Nguyen Dang Dien came across two children with disabilities lying curled up amid a pile of buffalo dung.
In tears, he took off his shirt and wiped the dirt from the two children. A decision flashed into the mind of this son of God: he asked the homeowner, and took them home to raise. And from that moment, the elderly Priest began a new life, giving God’s boundless love to lives that are not whole.
Children who cannot speak or hear, with congenital deformities, intellectual disabilities, paralysis of all four limbs…, unfortunate people kept coming to him, hoping for help and shelter. From the difficult early days, over more than 10 years of overcoming countless difficulties and trials, through the boundless love of the kind Priest, the 19/3 Centre for Orphans and Children with Disabilities has become a loving home for nearly 150 people with disabilities from all over the country who come to this warm, humane address.
Explaining the name 19/3, Priest Nguyen Dang Dien said: “That was the first day the Centre took in two children with disabilities to raise, and it is also the Feast of St Joseph.” Working hard and contributing money and labour, by 2003 Priest Nguyen Dang Dien had raised 600 million VND to build the facilities as they are now.
Through his connections, enlisting the local authorities, benefactors and fellow children of God, after 12 years since its founding, his Centre has opened four sites in Nghi Dien, Nghi Van, Quynh Xuan and Nghi Phong (Nghe An). At present, he remains the main sponsor sustaining the Centre’s operations. A two-storey house of a few dozen square metres, the main house is divided into four small rooms for the children, with a row of side rooms behind for the kitchen, bathing and washing, and accommodation for the Sisters and mothers.
Speaking of the bodies of people with disabilities, full of tears, Priest Dien recalled the first case he took in to raise more than 10 years ago, a man who was about 40 when he died. Seriously ill, with a congenital deformity, his body when Priest Dien took him in was truly painful, deformed and bent, his two arms clasped tightly behind his back as if tied, and he was also deaf and unable to speak. Throughout his years at the Centre, until the last moment of his life, he was always cared for and shared with in a special way by Father Dien and the Sisters.
Every day, after each prayer time, Priest Dien tries to spend time visiting the children, managing and running the Centre’s activities. He cares about each meal and each night’s sleep of the children, regularly reminding the Sisters and mothers to look closely after each child’s circumstances, to talk and encourage them so their physical pain is eased.
The cases cared for and raised by the 19/3 Centre are all people with severe disabilities, with all kinds of illnesses, including some children who are victims of Agent Orange/dioxin, encephalitis, and loss of cognitive ability. But most are cases of congenital disability. Even more pitiful, some children came to the Centre because they were abandoned by their parents and families, some have no father or mother, and some come from poor families that cannot afford to raise them and send them to the centre… At first they came from districts within Nghe An Province, but word spread, and people from localities such as Ha Tinh, Quang Binh and even Kon Tum in the Central Highlands asked Father Dien to take them in.
It is precisely because the children who come here often have severe deformities, cannot walk, many cannot speak, and suffer from sores that need frequent washing and cleaning, that caring for them takes a great deal of time and, above all, requires patience.
Sister Quynh said that one child from Quynh Luu (Nghe An), though over 30 years old, is only as big as a 10-year-old child, with a deformed, crooked mouth and bent arms and legs due to congenital brain disease, and orphaned. Or children affected by Agent Orange as a legacy of the war, who, when the weather changes and their illness returns, writhe in pain…
At such times, the Sisters worry and rush about, skipping meals by day and sleep by night to watch over the children and soothe the pain tormenting their bodies. Among the children cared for at the Centre, only a few can stammer a couple of words, while the rest lie in one place, eyes staring, limbs bent, bodies deformed… a pitiful sight.
Or the case of a boy from Duc Tho, Ha Tinh, paralysed and lying in one place, who can only hear and not speak, but is still aware and dimly understands what is happening around him. Or a 17-year-old boy, only as big as a 5- or 6-year-old, from Nghe An, with paralysed legs, intellectual disability and memory loss… All are welcomed, cared for and raised with sincere affection, full of love, as family members.
Bestowing God’s grace
Whatever the hour, however hard and difficult, from the Priest aged over 80 to the young nuns aged eighteen or twenty, all regard their voluntary work at the Centre as the great purpose of their lives. Shedding tears with the pain tormenting the children’s bodies, shedding tears at the rare smiles on faces withered by the marks of disability, these people with “hearts of gold” make the 19/3 Centre truly a place where the seeds of human love are sown.
On the path of charity, bestowing God’s grace, the kind Father with hair turned white by time always strives to keep the Centre running. With more than 100 people with dozens of illnesses, all incurable, the Centre must have a minimum budget to cover living costs and help the children fight their illnesses. By God’s grace, over the years many benefactors, compatriots and parishioners who empathise with the pain of these harsh fates and admire the boundless heart of Priest Nguyen Dang Dien have voluntarily come to visit and care for the children, contributing and donating so the Centre can cover its operating costs.
To raise more funds, the Sisters and mothers at the Centre have learned weaving, embroidery, making religious objects, and opened additional services selling books, typing, making plastic flowers and greeting cards… to create extra income, for a little more sugar, a box of milk and medicine for the children to build up their health and fight illness.
“We care for the children out of love for God, so that God may be glorified and people may be happy,” the gentle, simple yet immensely noble sharing of Sister Pham Thuy Quynh speaks for every Sister and mother who has spent years in this warm 19/3 home.
Without discrimination or prejudice in treatment, and above all without fear of difficulty or hardship, serving for years dozens of people unable to wash themselves is an enormous challenge for every Sister and mother here. Although not related, all the patients receive careful, meticulous care down to every pair of trousers, every shirt, every bowl of rice and every night’s sleep.
Sister Quynh continued: “Although the work is very specialised, the Sisters are never sad or discouraged. We take the children as the joy of our dedicated lives; we take the children’s joy as our own happiness. We vow to live and act according to the word of God: “Love people as yourself.”
Diligent as industrious bees, day after day, they keep quietly working, staying up late and rising early, tenderly caring for the children with the heart of a kind mother and sister.
Before parting, with a saintly face and eyes full of faith, Sister Pham Thuy Quynh said softly: “Our greatest wish is for the children to suffer less deprivation, to forget their sadness and pain, and to find happiness in life”./.
Quang Vu – http://www.vietnamplus.vn