When her daughter received much-needed surgery through Children’s Heart Project, a ministry of Samaritan’s Purse, Yudith discovered she could trust God with her own life as well.
There’s no experience more heart-wrenching than seeing the health of your child decline, said Yudith, a Bolivian mother. Her daughter, Nihan, was diagnosed shortly after birth with a hole in her heart. But instead of closing on its own as sometimes happens, the hole got bigger, and she had a heart murmur.
By the time that Nihan was age 5, Yudith would routinely cry in worry as her daughter had little stamina to walk short distances. Nihan’s brother, her best friend, would carry her on his back as far as he could when her strength failed to walk on her own.
“It was hard to see her getting weaker,” Yudith recalled.
Nihan lives in the highlands of Bolivia in El Alto, next to the capital city of La Paz.
’A Miracle from God’
When Yudith heard that Nihan could have a procedure to correct her heart defect through our Children’s Heart Project at no cost to the family, the mother was incredulous and at first a little skeptical. She was afraid to travel to an unfamiliar country with people she didn’t know.
But our Children’s Heart Project team in Bolivia reassured her by sharing the experiences of past project patients and their families.
“It is a miracle for me that God has sent you to help people who have low resources,” Yudith said. Her family sells vegetables for a living, including a variety of green pumpkins.
Nihan and Reynaldo visit a local market where their family sells green pumpkins.
Made possible through donations to Samaritan’s Purse, we arrange roundtrip air transportation for Children’s Heart Project patients accompanied by a parent or guardian and one of our project interpreters. We also arrange for them to stay with hosts near the partnering hospital performing the procedure.
’The Doctor of Doctors’
Nihan and Yudith stayed in a mission house in Grand Cayman, near Health City Cayman Islands in the Caribbean where Nihan had her heart procedure.
Waiting back at home in Bolivia, Nihan’s grandmother, Clara, and brother, Reynaldo, prayed for her to have a successful surgery.
“You are strong and all powerful, Lord of Heaven.”
“You are the doctor of doctors,” Clara prayed. “You are strong and all powerful, Lord of Heaven.”
Yudith also prayed to God during Nihan’s procedure, confident that He was seeing them through it.
Thanks to her daughter’s surgery provided through Children’s Heart Project, Yudith can now watch in joy as Nihan keeps up with her brother in play at a neighborhood children’s recreation area.
During a post-surgery checkup, Nihan’s doctor told the girl that she would be able to run and play without worry. She hugged him and said, “Thank you for healing my heart,” Yudith recounted.
“She has so much more energy,” Yudith said. “Now, she’s on the go, wanting to be active.”
“I feel good, I’m healed!” Nihan said.
Another New Heart
A couple of days after Nihan’s heart procedure, Yudith decided to trust Jesus Christ as her Savior and was baptized at a local beach.
“I recognized a change in myself, that I am relying on God no matter the circumstance,” she said. “I can trust Him, no matter what is going on in my life.”
Yudith memorized Scripture as she and her interpreter read the Bible together and wrote those verses in a notebook so she could refer to them and share them with others.
“I’m looking forward to going home not only to reunite with family but to share my testimony with them,” she said. “I want to share with family back home what I’m learning here.”
