THE ADVANTAGE OF A HANDICAP!        DFO 1111        6/9/81
(A Personal letter to M/M with Dad's notes.)

1. Dear Ones:
       GBY! I love you & am so thankful for the Mags, Komix & now the Garden of Eden tapes!!! What a privilege to be able to live in this Endtime & to be entrusted with so much truth! After reading, "Rotten Apples" I felt such a burden to write you & ask for special prayer & maybe some counsel for our little mongoloid girl, Juliana Blessing. (Her testimony was in Mag 32) Lord help me to write it all down.
       2. To be honest, I've been afraid to write you about it because it might receive an answer like you said in "Frustrated?" paragraph 2 "You may not like the kind of answer you get." But I can see it's just my self-righteous Scorpio pride & that is so wrong for poor Juliana's sake (& our whole Family's sake) because we really need to grow & learn these lessons the Lord is trying to show us. LHU.
       3. So to begin with, Juliana was born 26 Feb. 1980 in Guayaquil, Ecuador with Downs Syndrome & a very bad heart. Right now she has malnutrition that the doctors tell us is from her poor functioning heart. It has a hole between the two chambers which makes it have to work twice as hard as a normal one--also it is very large. So she is very skinny & small, but like you said in "Rotten Apples" par. 5 "Mongoloids have a very sweet spirit..." This is so true of Juliana. She is so sweet. She really touches our hearts all the time & is already touching other people's hearts, too. Often when we've all been out singing & witnessing women will come up & look at her or hold her & get tears in their eyes & start opening up to me. One woman held her & just wept silently--she couldn't even speak. She's a beautiful little love gift that's for sure.
       (DAD: See, it really touches people's hearts because they're so sorry for them they really listen.)
       4. We've really prayed so much for the Lord to heal her little heart & have been through so much with doctors etc. I know it's something we've done--as you said, "We must remember if there's a chronically sick or retarded...baby born in a family, there is usually something wrong with the mother or father to teach them a lesson or simply punishment for their past sins or present sins." (No.1023:8) (DAD: We should also say, or to humble them & break their hearts & tender them & teach them real compassion & love & humility, you know? We should add that, because it's not always just a punishment. Sometimes the Lord just lets it happen to cause us to know what real love is like, and to show us how much He must love all of us spiritually-retarded children, huh? And how patient & loving He is & we must be. TYL! Amen. Hallelujah!)
       5. The first thing that came to me when they brought her to me after the birth in the clinic was the Lord was dealing with my lack of love for weaker brethren, "pity the weak". Also when the Letter "Handicapped?" came out I was 5-6 months pregnant with Juliana & when we read the Letter together we all felt convicted. Because one thing we knew was we weren't the loving Family we should be & had prayed God would make us so. And I think Juliana is doing that to us & accomplishing that prayer--"making our whole family more humble, more loving & more seeking the Lord. The whole purpose is love: to make us more loving & having a loving influence upon the whole Family." (No.830:23,28)
       (DAD: Well, there you are, that's the answer to that, because if anything will humble you & make you have more compassion & love & patience, that, no doubt, will do it. It's wonderful that they see & realise what the Lord's done, praise the Lord!)
       6. But I feel there must be something more the Lord is trying to show me in the fact that she is so thin & frail. So maybe if you could have time to pray about it. (DAD: Amen, Lord, that's probably to touch their hearts, too, you know.)
       7. Here are some of the circumstances (No's.1023:12 & 1002:14): At the time I conceived Juliana we had been in the States for nearly a year "furloughing" & were waiting on some money we found we were eligible for, to come South. We had a nice home at the time & were litnessing & learning to sing a couple songs in Spanish in the Mexican part of Austin, Texas. At the time a single brother was living with us whom I had a lot of trials about. He was a weaker brother, had been in a mental hospital for schizophrenia & still acted a bit strange. I shared with him a few times sexually but it was a trial for me. It bothered me a lot living with him. We lived there for three months before going South to Ecuador where she was born. (DAD: Well, the Lord used it. Maybe he was really retarded, you know, & maybe you didn't have enough patience, love & patience for him, so the Lord let this happen to teach you more love & patience.)
       8. I really want to confess & repent of my sins which caused it, which I think were being unloving & judging of others. But do you think there is something more I should do? We're all so grateful for all these Letters on handicapped children & really want to make our situation a blessing. We think Juliana is a blessing already but really want to learn the lesson! TY for taking time to read this & know that we appreciate your prayers so much. We are so happy you are out of the cold frozen North. WLYSM! XXXXOOOO.
Forever,

Merryheart Smilin' & Nimshi, Zack, John, Stormy, Joey & Sara too!

       9. (DAD--AFTER HER LETTER: YOU ALLOWED IT LORD. WE JUST ASK YOU TO ACCOMPLISH THY PURPOSE WHATEVER IT IS. The wonderful thing about it is if the child doesn't survive, she is better off with the Lord where she'll be whole again. No doubt the Lord sends some of these special children to cause people to be softened & tendered & broken & humbled & to teach the Family love & patience. You know, it really touches you. Maybe the Lord does it to show some of us retarded & handicapped children how much love He has for us, the same as we have for ours.
       10. (IN SOME WAYS HE LOVES THE RETARDED ONES EVEN MORE & HAS EVEN MORE COMPASSION ON THEM, JUST AS WE DO ON OURS. TYJ! He touches people's hearts. PYL! Actually, in some ways, they say it hurts us parents more than the child because the child has never known anything else but its handicap, therefore it doesn't really bother the child actually as much as it does us. I mean the child has never known what it's like not to be handicapped. The only way the child can tell if there's any difference is because there's a difference between him or her & the other children. The child knows he's different, but whether that is difficult to bear or not, I don't know, but they've always been used to that apparently.
       11. (WE BOTH WEPT FOR YOU & JULIANA & PRAYED FOR YOU, so already she's already done us all a lot of good in touching our hearts & making them more broken & tender & compassionate, & we trust that when we've all been profited by it, why then, "rather let it be healed." (Heb.12:13)--In Jesus' name, amen. PTL! GBY!)

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