Perspective

I imagine the conversation may have gone something like this:
"Could we go?"
       "Could we go? ...  what do you mean? Women don't go to these meetings.  There were only a few  of them there last year, and those are the ones from that other village - that village where there are many Jesus-followers.... We're not like them."
"But what if there are doctors there this year? I heard that there were doctors last year..."
       "But what do the foreign doctors know?  They do not live here in the jungle ... they are not U*!"
"There might be a chance they could help my eyes ..." 
       "You've been blind for 'tiempo' - what can they do about your eyes now? They don't have that kind of power..."
"I heard they helped a man last year, from that village where they follow Jesus... and his eyes were becoming sick. But now he can see at least with one eye.  And my mother said there are many women going this year.... and children, youth."
       "There are many women going?  And children too? ... How does your mother know? Is she going?"
"She wants us to all go - our whole family. And maybe there will be some help for my eyes.... I am too young to lose my sight.  There may be something the doctors can do... if there are doctors there."
        "Maybe ... Maybe... "


Whatever the conversation leading up to the decision to leave their jungle village, 2 or 3 days journey in a canoe, through jungle waters of the Rio Chambira ... they went. They came. To Aurora, to the yearly meeting of the U* with our team of mostly foreigners. I don't know if they really came for the possibility of seeing a doctor, if they were planning to come anyway, or if my speculation is even close.  I believe it was the first trip to Aurora for their family. But Rosa, blind for "some time", did get to see a foreign doctor, was prayed for several times, and the power of Jesus to heal hopeless conditions was shared with her - all maybe for the first time.


It is true that there were few women at Aurora last year; none in years past.
It is true that Rosa's mother was there - caring for her middle aged daughter who cannot see.
It is true that these women had the courage to come to someplace new, to reach into unknown places, to meet unknown people. 
It is true that there was a man last year with an illness affecting his eyes, and that after being seen by the doctors last year, was referred to an Ophthalmologist in Iquitos and his vision was partly spared.
It is true that women were not thought able to read until very recently.

Perspectives change. Even deep, deep in the jungle.
 

The U* women - some 60 women came from ~10 different villages

So it turns out that our prayers for Rosa have been answered in part.  Kathy updated me briefly that she was evaluated and has a cataract in one eye (as we suspected), which can be surgically removed. Providing there is no deeper disease affecting other parts of her eye, providing she can have the surgery, she will have some of her sight restored.   And Jesus can still heal her fully, without any of those interventions. 
May her perspective be changed - physically, visually, and spiritually.  And may her and her family's willingness to come, to hope, to ask ... lead them to all see clearly, with eyes of faith.

For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. [I Cor 13:12]