A Liver Mass

He was a small man, dark-skinned, sinewy, aged beyond his years from stifling heat and backbreaking work. He did not particularly stand out from any of the hundreds like him that I examined that week. Silent at his side sat his wife, not quite aloof, but reserved, cradling their sleeping infant in her arms. He complained simply of what he called a "hernia" of his stomach. A strange thing to say, I thought.

When we were finished, he looked away. I found myself waiting, as if I wanted something else to happen, an inspiration to appear, a comforting thought to materialize, anything. Instead, silence pervaded, palpable and dense. It was awkward and uncomfortable. I finally looked away as well. A feeling of hollow emptiness griped me.

With nothing left for it, I turned toward the mother and the infant child. We proceeded with baby's check-up as if father's encounter had not just occurred. It was surreal. Mother had listened to everything but had said nothing. Now we were acting as if everything was just fine. However, everything wasn't just fine, not really. I knew better. The smile was missing from mother's face, but more than that, mother's smile was missing from the inside as well, I could tell.

As I continued my conversation with mother, I could not help but notice father's subtle separation. Almost imperceptibly, he repositioned himself on the bench so that he and mother ended up sitting with a significant a space between them. He faced away at a slight angle, distracted from our conversation, he was lost in his own thoughts, pensive, stunned even.

This little family was in shock. They were reeling. I calmly and quietly delivered a nuclear blast in the middle of their existence and even though to the casual observer on the outside nothing looked amiss, this family was devastated.

Our family medical visit ended with a polite good bye, and then they left. The nurse prepared for the next family but I could not move on. Something about that man, in the way he reacted, the way he detached, troubled me. My heart was not letting me let this pass.

The nurse sensed this and asked me if I was all right. I looked at her and told her that I was not. I gazed across the room. The beleaguered man and his taciturn wife were asking for prayer at the prayer station. I considered them for a moment.

"36 years old with a rock hard mass the size of a melon in his liver. And there isn't a thing he can do about it. What good did I do him?"

The nurse said nothing. "You know something, I don't know what that mass is, but I think it will kill him and I also think he knows it."

I could not settle the issue in my mind. The question seemed clear. Did I travel all the way from my comfortable home in Iowa, to a remote isolated Peruvian jungle village, to tell that man he had a mass in his liver, only to go back home and leave him there to die? Is that why I went to Peru? As I watched him from across the room, in my heart I knew that it was not. I said to the nurse, "Wait here, I'll be back."

I crossed the room to the prayer station. The man sat with his wife, the baby still secure in her embrace. A translator and two of our team members were in conversation with them. "Excuse me," I interrupted, "but I need to know, have you asked him if he is a believer? Does he know the Lord Jesus Christ?"

"We asked him and he said yes, he is a believer. He is a member of the church here. Do you want to pray with him and his family?"

I did. We prayed together. When we parted ways the first time, his future seemed uncertain, after our final parting my sense was altogether different. His future, I came to understand, is entirely guaranteed, as is mine.

As Christian brothers, the apostle Peter tells us, "we live with a wonderful expectation because Jesus Christ rose from the dead. For God has reserved a priceless inheritance for His children. It is kept in heaven for us, pure and undefiled, beyond the reach of change and decay.

And God, in His mighty power, will protect us until we receive this salvation, because we are trusting Him. It will be revealed on the last day for all to see. So be truly glad! There is wonderful joy ahead, even though it is necessary for us to endure many trials for a while."

I'm glad he knew Jesus and that I had an opportunity to encourage him. But the thought nags at me, what if he hadn't known Jesus? I can't bear it that I would go to Peru to meet this man, or someone like him and then leave him there to die without telling him about Jesus, the reason for the hope that is within me. Jesus predicted that his followers would tell people about Him everywhere, even to the ends of the earth.

The apostle Paul said, "Anyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. But how can they call on Him to save them unless they believe in Him? And how can they believe in Him if they have never heard about Him? And how can they hear about Him unless someone tells them?"

That is the real reason I went to Peru, to tell people about Him, everywhere. "How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!" That is a good motto.