Quoted from The Tennessean (Sept. 25, 2016) How the ex-CMA chief saved a Guatemalan girl's life
Nineteen-year-old Ana Rios still cries at the memory of a bullet ripping through her abdomen when she was a little girl.
Ana, 4, had gone to the neighborhood store in Guatemala City for some corn tortillas. Four armed robbers rushed into the store, and a gunfight with the owners broke out. One of the robbers grabbed Ana and used her as a shield.
Ana grabbed her stomach to hold in her guts.
She remembers her brother pleading with her in the ambulance:
“Please don’t cry. Please don’t fall asleep.”
Surgeons in the impoverished local hospital couldn’t remove the bullet, so they left it inside her sternum. Doctors said the bullet threatened her growth, and they wondered aloud whether it might be so close to an artery that it could kill her soon. A Nashvillian would save her.
She met country music industry giant Steve Moore — Country Music Association board president in 2008, chairman in 2009, CEO from 2010 to 2013 — a year later, when her aunt, driving through town, saw Steve and some other Americans building houses in their neighborhood.
The aunt drove up to Steve, yanked Ana out of the car, and hiked up the little girl’s shirt to show the American the scar that ran from her chest to below her belly button. She spoke quickly in Spanish to the American, explaining the shooting, the scar and the fears, while Moore, stunned, looked at her blankly, understanding only a few words she was saying.
Moore figured out the girl, little Ana Banana with the beautiful smile, needed help. After many phone calls and favors, he arranged to fly Ana to Nashville, where a Nashville physician would perform surgery to remove the bullet. Moore also arranged for a dentist to fix the little girl’s abscessed teeth and for women from church to take her on a shopping spree. Moore and his friends have since sent her to private school and to college, and they gave her a job at the Shalom Foundation in Guatemala City. “I feel like I can give back some of all of the help I have received through the years — and I can be part of changing many lives,” Ana said through an interpreter in a phone interview. That brought Moore and his friends great satisfaction, but he was left with a nagging thought. What about the rest of the kids? Where do they go for critical care?
The Moore Pediatric Surgery Center — he flinches at the name — opened in Guatemala City in 2011, and visiting surgeons now work for a week each in one of the center’s three operating rooms, providing free procedures for children and teens who need them. Jennifer Nettles of Sugarland, who speaks fluent Spanish, is among the dozens of Nashvillians who have made the trip to see the surgery center. Many Guatemalans are grateful for the free, often life-saving medical care. And Moore has found his spirituality.
“I’m not in the back pew anymore,” he said, smiling. “That still doesn’t mean sometimes I think I’m not worthy. I struggle like everybody with different things. But I feel pretty good about my relationship with the Lord and what he has allowed me to do. It’s just amazing how God chose a guy like me.”
Thank you so much Steve for your time with MilliOnAir Global Magazine, we hope to see and hear more of you in 2017
How the ex-CMA chief saved a Guatemalan girl's life