Experiencing God’s mercies

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Today is Thursday, March 13th.

Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day.

Good morning. I’m Mary Reichard.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: And I’m Myrna Brown.

Coming next on The World and Everything in It: finding purpose in life’s hardest moments.

WORLD’s Leah Savas takes us to Michigan, where one family’s journal of caring for a child with disabilities has reshaped their understanding of suffering—and the dignity of every life.

NURSE BRENDA: Did you sleep good last night, Calvi? There’s a smile.

LEAH SAVAS: It’s a little after 8:30 in the morning in the Dedert home. Nurse Brenda VanAanhold is busy in a sunny back room, where a boy lies on a bed. He’s hooked up to tubes and cords. That white noise is the sound of an oxygen machine and a ventilator.

NURSE BRENDA: [Singing] Good morning to Calvi, good morning to Calvi.

Brenda holds the boy’s arms and swings them as she sings.

Calvin Dedert is 15 years old, the fourth of five siblings. But he can’t talk, walk, or move much on his own. He has a laundry list of medical conditions, including cerebral palsy, chronic lung disease, and microcephaly. That’s a neurological condition that results in a small head and brain. Calvin can only see light and dark. But he has great hearing, and he can move his eyes, wiggle his tongue, and smile.

NURSE BRENDA: I’m going to get your other neb going, Calvi…

Calvin is in the middle of his morning routine.

NURSE BRENDA: …and move on to the next thing. Right, Calvi? You’re always busy.

Brenda is giving him medications and then will use a few devices to clear his lungs of any fluid that might have built up overnight.

SOUND: [Tapping sound]

She pours formula into a plastic bag attached to a feeding tube.

He’s had it since he was about a year old. That was the first of many hard calls his mom Kara says she and her husband Darryl had to make after Calvin’s birth. But the first warning signs of his conditions came during an ultrasound at 38 weeks.

DEDERT: And we saw there was definitely a deficit where the brain matter was supposed to be and so we knew something was very wrong. Just as a mom, you’re reeling. We just had no answers for it.

They were missionaries in Cambodia at the time. And it wasn’t until later that they discovered the issues were likely due to the Zika virus, which Kara had contracted at about 13 weeks of pregnancy.

As a newborn, Calvin seemed like a normal baby. But they eventually discovered that he was aspirating while nursing. The milk was going straight into his lungs.

They also learned from a neurologist that Calvin would never walk or talk.

DEDERT: She recommended not doing anything. And we said, well, we've also been considering a feeding tube. And she was very much if you, if you do a feeding tube, almost like “I wash my hands of this” is what the feeling was. She didn't say that directly. We felt this weight of, are we causing additional suffering?

Kara and Darryl later realized the doctor’s issue was less with the tube and more with the value of Calvin’s life.

DEDERT: There is something totally unrelated to quality of life that is so valuable to recognize in every single person, and there is just intrinsic value in being brought into life.

The desire to meet his basic needs fueled their decisions as the years went by and other interventions arose.

DEDERT: He would have these episodes where he would cry. And then he would go completely blue and limp. And we thought he was dying.

Turns out his airways were collapsing. He wasn’t getting the oxygen he needed. That led to a tracheostomy tube—or trach—in his neck. By then, he was about three years old.

But Calvin’s condition remained fragile.

DEDERT: It was constant, trying to keep him from basically suffocating from the fluid that would constantly build up in his lungs.

That meant repeated stays in the ICU for weeks at a time as Calvin fought infections with the help of a ventilator. They often didn’t expect him to live.

DEDERT: I mean, I wouldn't buy clothes often for the next season. Because he was so frail and so fragile.

During one extended hospital stay, it became clear that he could no longer live without a ventilator. Going home without it would just mean a slow, painful death by suffocation. So, when they left the hospital that time, they brought a ventilator with them. That was in 2020. He’s been on it ever since.

DEDERT: Where we are today is it's a progressively deteriorating situation. And yet just a surrendering of his life to the Lord knowing that the Lord knows how many days he has.

SOUND: [Sound of lift]

Back in the sunny room, nurse Brenda operates a lift to move Calvin from bed. Now that he’s a teenager, he’s too heavy for anyone to lift him except his dad. So, to get him out of bed, they strap him to a hammock-like seat hanging from a track on the ceiling. It moves up and down with the push of a button.

SOUND: [Sound of lift switching off]

Brenda lowers him onto a blue mesh stretcher and rolls him into a bathroom with a walk-in shower down the hall.

SOUND: [Sound of shower and singing]

Calvin is totally dependent on the help of others. From the world’s perspective, he doesn’t contribute to society and uses up time and resources.

DEDERT: We equate all suffering with bad things, but God, actually creates different meaning for suffering for those who are trusting in Him, our suffering is never pointless, and actually this is the very means that he will use, not only to refine you, but also to know Him more and to bring joy in ways that you had never imagined.

Kara said Calvin’s life has taught her to seek the Lord in ways she never did before he was born.

There was even a time she resisted learning about how to care for each one of Calvin’s medical needs. She didn’t want to be a neurologist or respiratory therapist. She just wanted to be a mom. But she’s since embraced it as an intentional work God has done in her life.

DEDERT: The way I view Calvin, the way I view even the mundane things like changing diapers and caring for him, these are actually acts of faithfulness and trust, and that these are the good works that he's prepared for me to do.

Kara recalls one time in church years ago, when the pastor asked a loud rhetorical question during his sermon: have any of you ever experienced the mercies of God? At just the right time, almost as if in response, Calvin let out a loud, satisfied yell.

DEDERT: And we all just looked he was so—it seemed so intentional towards the question, and just this huge smile on his face. And sometimes those coincidences just seem too coincidental, but it just seemed like he was testifying. Yes, I have received, I've experienced the mercies of God many times!

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Leah Savas in Belmont, Michigan.

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