Valera

The first time I saw Valera was during a tour of the Dom Internat when we paid our first visit to Tarasiki. Many pictures were taken. We saw impressively depressive sights, met with sickening smells in several blocks, humiliating conditions, etc. All this at just 4 hours from home by plane. Among the many pictures I took there was one of a man sitting on the heating pipes.

Valera on the heating pipes

His face showed a desolate, dejected, hopeless look. He sat there, cowering, with his feet almost the round shape of a basketball. His clothes were rather shabby and the unpainted and badly kept room contained nothing beyond an old ramshackle chair and table. Among so many impressions, this man just filed in with the rest.

Last year, May 2008, when we visited Tarasiki again, the weather turned fine. An opportunity for many residents to go outside. Suddenly I saw a man on the grass, put there by someone. He lay there like a fetus, not on his side, but on his back. Totally bent as though he had returned to his mother's lap. He lay there, very quiet and patient, until someone would pick him up and carry him back indoors. Some time before there had been a heavy shower and as the Dom Internat is bordering on the swamp the place was crawling with gnats. We were punctured but unfortunately, so was this man, a willing victim. He was only the shadow of the man I had seen half a year before. Once back in the Netherlands you start to reflect on what you have seen and heard and thus this man entered my mind again. Thinking of him, my heart was touched tremendously. Why hadn't I just sat next to him and put my arm around him? Jesus would have done so. Embassador of God's love.... Unfortunately, last year we had a tight schedule, made by my hostess and I simply didn't have the chance.

Throughout last year this man kept coming back into my thoughts and my heart was sorely touched for him. I made the decision I would find him if only I got half a chance. I hoped he hadn't died, because considering how brittle he was this was very well possible. As we were staying at Tarasiki longer this time than previous visits I took my chance. I explained to Lilia, one of the nurses, whom I was looking for and we went in search for him. We found him in the block where he lives, hunched with his legs pulled up against his body, barefooted, his face hidden in his clothes. I was deeply touched and couldn't help but crying. I was so very glad to see him and alive! I heard that his name is Valera. Lilia explained that last year his weight had gone down to a mere 28 kilos! A 48-year old man!

Valera, 48 years old, only 28 kilo

I asked permission to spend some time with him, and fortunately I was granted this. They promised to take him to the club, where Tatiana, her heart brimming with compassion, was doing creative work with some of the residents. There Valera was taken in a broken-down wheelchair with flat tyres. He was placed at a table. A nurse told his legs were actually dying off because of his cramped pose. His hands were tightly pressed together and when you touched them you could feel nothing but bones. I carefully took his hands in mine and started to use the few useful phrases I had learnt: that God loves him, and that this is true! That he, Valera, is my friend. We put biscuits in front of him and after his eyes had anxiously searched the whole room he fell to eating the biscuits, all of them. Note that he had just finished his dinner.... The biscuits were followed by three big cups of tea. Then together we prayed for him. During prayers Nikola noticed Valera wanted to stand up and we heard him say, softly: help me. Those were the first words he uttered for a very long time: all those present said he couldn't speak!

I saw a man, totally hopeless and lonely, cramped, expecting nothing of life, rather waiting for the end to come. A creature God made in His own image. Observing him closely you could see a very tender look in his eyes, mixed with absolute dejection, fear. The next time I asked if I could take Valera for a ride in a wheelchair, one of the other residents had to hand over his.... We had been told there was no need for more wheelchairs at the Dom Internat....

Together we took an extensive stroll of the grounds, which means a few times up and down, and we took some rests on a seat, Valera in the wheelchair next to me and I on the seat. I kept repeating the phrases and I put my arm around him and slowly he opened his hands. In the end we kept each other's hands. Friends..... In his face I couldn't see much emotion of any sort, but his head kept showing more and more from among his clothes. Quite literally, he reappeared. Hopefully, this is the beginning of more of Valera. There we were sitting in the sun, with Valera's sleeves turned up to get some vitamin D in his skin. Being together, unspeakable richess!

Until one of the female residents came up, pointed at Valera and called him a scaredy-cat. At the same moment Valera took refuge inside his clothes again. I saw quite clearly what havoc words can wreak in a man's life. In our mouth there is surely blessing and cursing. Our tongue can destroy and revive our fellow human beings. Valera, discarded by his family, desolate and lonely, cast away and hidden, had begun to believe that 'truth' and in the end he had become an anxious wretch with as his only prospect death, which would come soon.

I had to leave Valera behind, but I have told him I hoped God would send someone to him who would speak words of life, words of blessing to him.

Now Tatiana has painted the walls of his room in cheerful colours and put bright decorations on the windows. She visits him a few times a week and spends some time with him. On the table there is a small cloth with a pot and plant. A table and chair from outside the Dom Internat.... She wrote me in an email letter that Valera is no longer afraid, he no longer hides in his clothes.... There is hope!

Valera is one of God's 276 pearls at Tarasiki, invaluable, priceless in His eyes.