Our medical mission team was driving up a winding road in the countryside of Colombia from the city of Villeta to a small town called Albane. It was the kind of small-town road where you meet an oncoming car and someone must pull over to let the other pass. We were on our way to make a house call to a gentleman who was bedridden. As we climbed the hillside road, an amazing vista came into view with the mountains in the far distance. We talked about how expensive this view would be for properties in the States and many other developed countries.

Finally, we arrived at the house. It was a small home. Two rooms. Maybe 500 square feet.  Entering through the front door, we found ourselves in the kitchen which consisted of a wood burning stove and a table. In the next room, lit by a single, dim light, was a couch and a chair.  Beside the couch was a bed base made of simple plywood with a three-inch mattress on top. It was on this mattress where we met Arcadio Linares.

Looking back now after hearing his story, it is baffling that my first impression of this 89-year-old man was one of joy. It shined on his face before words were ever spoken.

Before we begin, we need to go back 20 years to a very dark and important moment in Arcadio’s life. Arcadio and his sons were living in a small, nearby village when a band of rebels showed up and began shooting people. Arcadio and his sons ran for their lives. As they were running, he watched his sons get shot and killed, yet he knew he must keep running to survive. He ran through the trees and came up to a cliff overlooking a lake 20 feet below. He quickly made the decision to jump to safety. Unfortunately, he landed in two feet of water, breaking his legs and his back.

He pulled himself out of the water and eventually found help to take him to a local hospital where he was told there was nothing that could be done. He was taken home to “mend”. Arcadio never walked again after that day. The mattress he was laying on the day we met him was the mattress he had been laying on for several years.

As I sat down beside Arcadio to hear his story, I also began examining him. Initially, I thought he was paralyzed, but as I examined him further, I realized he had full sensation in his legs and could move his feet.

He wasn’t paralyzed. 

He was fused at the ankles, knees, and back. He was fused because of the lack of proper medical care. Tears came to my eyes. I yelled in my brain, “This should have never happened!” Rebels raiding villages?!  A man bedridden because of limited access to proper medical care?!

My first instinct was to go into ER doctor mode and figure out how to fix him. I was there with one of my best friends who is also an ER doctor. We began to discuss his actual diagnosis, what type of physical therapy he needed, whether there were surgical options, and even how we could get him mobile enough to go outside and see the amazing view we had witnessed on the way to his house!

As we talked through different options, I caught a glance of Arcadio’s face as he grabbed my hand. The smile was still there. There was even an unexpected glimmer in his old eyes.

He began to talk to me more about his life. He talked of how God had been good to him all these years. He talked of the people God had put in his life to help him and his wife.  People visited him.  People sat and talked with him. People read the Bible to him. They prayed with him. He even attributed our visit to us being sent by God to spend time with him.

And he was so very thankful.

He talked about how Jesus talked to Him. Arcadio felt His presence every day in that room. He spoke about how he never feels alone. He had true joy and happiness in his heart.

I couldn’t stop the tears that were welling up. This bedridden man was living out an astonishing legacy. A legacy built on travesty and heartache; sustained by a peculiar joy that could only come from God.

As I marveled over the million-dollar view of the mountainside outside the walls of the house, Arcadio pointed me to his priceless view of Jesus’ presence inside the house.

As I strained to figure out how to fix his problem, Arcadio graciously showed me there was no problem to fix other than my own need to change my view.

My view of legacies tends to include work, effort, accomplishment, and ambition, which all have their rightful place. Yet the view of a lasting legacy should also include an unshakeable joy and happiness despite your circumstances.

Arcadio’s legacy is wrapped around his joyful view of life from his makeshift bed, in his little house, on a hillside in Colombia.  His legacy matters.