Promise Kept!
I made this girl, Dany, a promise. “I will never leave Cambodia until your leg is healed!” Dany was a crippled girl with two healthy siblings from a poor family in rural Steung Treng Province. Her father died when she was young and her mother re-married twice. As an infant she learned to walk late and was slower and weaker than other kids her age. Though she and her family did not know it, she had tuberculosis of the bones. Even though she had trouble walking normally, she desperately wanted to be like other children. With “mind over matter” she determined to climb a tree she had seen other kids ascend dozens of times. Though she made it up farther than anyone would expect in her condition, she spent all of her strength. Dany lost her grip and fell to the ground. Although it probably wasn’t more than six or eight feet, her bones were so fragile she broke her right hip. There was no money for treatment so she walked with a bamboo pole. For a child at her age, with no knowledge or understanding of the disease attacking her bones, she hated her disability and wanted to be normal.
As though Dany’s physical and emotional pain wasn’t enough, her second step-father would frequently come home drunk. One evening, he became angry at her inability to take care of household chores as the other kids. In his drunken rage he targeted her point of weakness and kicked her right hip. Her hip became infected and she couldn’t walk for several weeks. Once again, she determined to walk and although she couldn’t put much weight on the right side of her hip, she was as mobile as she could be with her stronger left hip and a bamboo walking stick in her right hand. She lived in this condition for another seven years. She hobbled to the market with her mother every morning to help sell eggs.
Mak Sou went to visit the Steung Treng Church Home and went to buy some food for the kids. As Sou glanced around the market she saw Dany selling eggs and was struck with compassion. As Sou inquired about Dany she asked Dany’s mother if she could have Dr. Lina (FCOP’s staff pediatrician) examine her. Her mother’s response pierced Sou’s heart as she heard, “This is a worthless girl, you can have her!” No amount of reasoning seemed to change the mother’s mind about her daughter’s condition. The family believed she was a curse and even if she was healed, she’d bring them bad luck. Without care or concern, the mother agreed to allow a medical exam and signed custody for Dany over to FCOP.
Dr. Lina did a preliminary exam but determined there is so much scar tissue and bone fracture that she needed to go for testing at the National Children’s Hospital in Phnom Penh. She began to imagine what she would do with the hope that she would be able to walk. “Do you think when I can walk, that I can start to dance? I would love to dance.” Tears of joy came as Dany was amazed that someone was helping her.
In Phnom Penh, under the care of FCOP, she had several surgeries to drain more than a gallon of infection from her hip, pin the pelvis, and began a year-long treatment for tuberculosis. This was a lot for a young girl to go through. In addition to her physical treatment, she found a loving family environment at the Chom Chao home. She believes God will take all the devil has done and turn it to develop her life to help others. Dany began walking with a crutch with her pinned pelvis, eventually she began to walk without the crutch and started dancing. She began leading one of the dance teams in the cultural performances at church. She had only one problem, one leg was two inches shorter than the other. Bob and Christal Hollandsworth had bought her lift shoes but the unequal nature of her leg length made them painful to use.
For years Pa Thom (Ted) has been looking for an orthopedic surgeon to help her. The doctors they consulted told her she would have to wait until she was fully grown. "About a year ago I saw that Dany was softly crying to herself as she walked away from our training center because she could not perform a certain dance function. I put my hand on her shoulder and told her that I would never leave Cambodia until her leg was healed. The tears gave way to a broad smile," explains Pa Thom.
At Thanksgiving time last year, Ted and Sou's son Emil brought his family to work on an FCOP Team. Stacy, Emil's wife, remembered Dany's condition and happened to mention it to a physical therapist who responded that he was going with an orthopedic surgery team to Cambodia. One thing led to another, and on February 3rd Dany received her operation. She has a new hip and both legs are the same length. She's walking daily and within a month she should be able to dance. A fervent believer in the goodness of God, she leads a morning devotion with some of her brothers and sisters at the Chom Chao home. She has become a beautiful and talented young woman and still prays for her family to come to Christ. Video
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