Growing Ministry Fills Critical Spiritual Need

He knows what it’s like to be the parent of a child hospitalized with a critical illness – at five months in the womb, Paul, the son of Vice President of Ministries Pablo Diaz was diagnosed with fluid in the kidneys caused by a life-threatening blockage. Thus began an excruciating saga of hospitalizations and five operations before Paul was a year old. 

“This is a ministry that has a profound impact on families and hospitalized children,” Pablo says, and by any measure the early success of the Comfort Kits Ministry bears that out. 25,000 kits will be distributed this year to hospitals, outpatient programs, camps and organizations for sick and injured children.

Pablo tells the story of a friend who took a sample Comfort Kit with her from a Guideposts program, and on the plane home to Texas sat next to someone with contacts at a Texas children’s hospital. By the very next day, that institution had ordered 600 kits. He also tells us how a Guideposts reader, whose own little boy was hospitalized 27 years ago and passed away, vowed to do all he could to help this important new Ministry provide spiritual and emotional support to hospitalized children and their worried families.