Even though she was a Christian, Lidia soon learned that she was not yet ready to trust God in the midst of suffering.
“When we came to America, we arrived in the bay area in California. The next day the first thing was going to social security … and I saw a doctor. From the first ultrasound, the doctors thought that my baby would have a problem. They saw that the last vertebra was missing from her back.
“I was raised in a loving home and we went to church all my life, very active. But I thought it would be a punishment if she were disabled. Two months later she was born with spina bifida. At that moment my whole life crushed. I cried, I screamed.
“I want to be very honest and very transparent. I said something horrible. I said, ‘Why don’t you give her an injection and she would die and not suffer and this would be ok?’ Do you know what the doctor told me? Maybe he was a Christian, but he changed my life and my attitude. He said, ‘Lidia, I am not here to kill; I’m here to save lives.’
“I was ashamed. I said, ‘Ok let’s do this.’ For the first two years of Becky’s life I was the most miserable mom. All these two years I didn’t pray, I didn’t sing; I was just there as a human body.
“One night I was very unhappy. All these years I talked with my parents all the time and they encouraged me. That night I was again very unhappy and wanted just to hear their voices. It was very early in Romania, and Daddy answered the phone and he said, ‘Lidia, we have the answer from the Lord.’
“He said, ‘Open the Bible to John chapter 9, where Jesus healed a blind man. [Jesus] said he was born blind not because of the parents’ sin, but so that [God’s] works can be glorified through him.’
“We prayed over the phone. My daddy said, ‘I know that Jesus can heal Becky in a second; He’s the same yesterday today and forever. But this would be only a temporary healing because this is earth. Much more, I know that God will heal your soul and Becky’s, and produce you for a spiritual healing for other people.’
“At that moment. During that time, under Ceausescu, intellectuals were not allowed to have a career, a future if they were Christians. I had very high expectations coming to America.
“But that prayer changed my life, when I surrendered all. I gave up to him my dreams my career, everything I wanted to accomplish in America. These were my words: ‘God, how can You glorify Your name through a broken vessel as I am?’
“Miracles cannot be described; this is why they are miracles, but something happened with my attitude toward Becky. The following days I saw Becky with different eyes. A veil came off my eyes. I saw Becky as an angel.
“I am honored that God chose me to have Becky and to be Becky’s mom. Becky has had many surgeries. I had to depend on God.
“[Later] I realized that parents and mothers were very unhappy as I [had been]. So this is how God gave me the passion and the vision to minister to the mothers.”
Lidia started a ministry with her husband called Becky’s Hope. They come to Romania several times a year and invite the parents of disabled children to a retreat. They provide wheelchairs for the children with special needs, but they also encourage the parents to see their children as a gift from God.
In Romania, oftentimes, children with special needs are seen as a curse, but Becky’s Hope is determined to change that mentality and glorify God through their work with parents.
“This is my statement,” Lidia says, “that God will give the spiritual healing to the family to accept their child as a blessing and not a curse. Being strong with the Lord, they can be a blessing to the community, to churches, to neighbors, and to change the whole country.”
Along with the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and Samaritan’s Purse last week, Lidia was involved with the distribution of wheelchairs in Timisoara. They fitted more than 200 people with wheelchairs, and they distributed walkers.
Some who came to receive a wheelchair had not been out of their homes for more than 20 years because of their disability. Now they can move around freely.
And this weekend, a crowd of people of all abilities are attending the Franklin Graham Festival of Hope, where they are hearing that God loves them, that God created them wonderfully, and that God’s glory is evident through them.
