Children Outside The Gate...Seeing God BIG, part 7

Children outside the gate who captured my heart...

A young man outside the gate who captured Nick's...

It started with the grandmother who needed money for her children to go to school… And then, a ride past a garbage dump where families, with small children, actually lived… I watched them pick up a bottle of some sort, off of the dump and actually drink from it…some of them live in houses made of garbage…

It grew with stories of small children who are orphaned and caring for their siblings…they live in mud huts and during rainy season, you can find them in their hut trying to hold up the walls…

It became overwhelming as I learned of a little girl at the orphanage who was found under a tree sitting alone, unable to talk, unable to walk, unable to crawl, her hips, pelvic bones and back distorted from sitting, her body the size of a 5 month baby, and no one to care for her.

From the community reports and the condition of her teeth they determined that she was two years old…2, but the size of a 5 month old. Her family had all died one by one, the people in the community who had taken her had died, and the people who had then taken her in could no longer cope so they left her to herself…x-rays showed that she had been eating dirt to satisfy her hunger…

These are the children outside the gate...children, who unlike the children inside the gate of the orphanage, had no guarantee of safety...of a food...of love...of the most basic necessities of life...things that no child should ever wonder if they'll have enough of... These children burdened my heart...

One afternoon, two days before we were to leave, I was taking a break when I noticed a young girl approaching the gate to the orphanage. School had just let out and as she approached, I quickly took a couple of photos…she was the picture of all that my heart was hurting for…

I went inside to ask if it would be ok to go and talk to her and learned that she had come to pick up her brother who was attending preschool at the orphanage…I was so excited to have even a moment with a child who lived outside the gate.

But that’s when it happened…utter confusion…I helped the little boy out to his sister, but then a construction truck pulled up, wanting to leave the grounds of the orphanage. There was no one around, so I decided to try and open the big gate for them…

What I didn’t know was that the gate had been hit weeks before and knocked off it’s track and it was too expensive to have it fixed. So I planted my feet and pushed…it wouldn’t budge…so I pushed harder…unfortunately, it had rained the night before and suddenly, my foot went one way and my knee in the opposite direction…I’ve never felt such excruciating pain…

At that point, one of the workers at the orphanage saw me and he ran to finish opening the gate, but for some reason, he didn’t help me…he opened the gate, and the truck driver, who couldn’t see me, proceeded forward…frantically, I managed to pull myself out of the way, but I couldn’t get up and the worker left…

So I prayed…I pleaded that nothing was seriously wrong, that somehow God would get me home without too much pain, that I would be able to finish this trip (I was NOT going to the hospital in Africa!).

I pulled myself up and started to walk…every few steps, my knee gave way, so I knew there was something seriously wrong, but at least there was no pain…

I learned later, from my orthopedist, that with the amount of swelling that I had, there should have been pain…I didn’t have serious pain until I got home, even though my leg was the size of a tree trunk…

But it was this injury, that I know, for certain God used to lead us to Abby…

When I returned home, the last of our paperwork had come back and all I needed to do was the final authentication in Washington D.C. We could have been logged in by the end of November, but we would have been logged in with an agency that didn’t receive Abby’s file. I was so frustrated by my knee…trying to decide what to do, to leave it or fix it… I was overwhelmed by our trip to Africa and I had no peace about the agency we had originally signed on with…

So, each day, I would use my knee as an excuse not to complete the final steps for our dossier. In December I had surgery to repair my knee and several days, after my surgery, I was sitting in my favorite chair, with my leg elevated. With nothing to do but wrestle over what to do about my lack of peace about our agency, I decided to search the internet for Waiting Children.

There was one agency that I had password for, so I decided to see if they had a new list… And they did! I will never forget seeing Abby’s face for the first time…she was listed as Dani… her eyes captured my heart…they were beautiful, but they looked so sad.

In that moment, I said, “Lord, is she ours?” And then I laughed at how ridiculous that thought was… But, I just couldn’t let it go…so I challenged Him… “Ok, fine…we can’t even ask about her right now, we aren’t with this agency…if she’s ours, then You’re going to have to move some hearts.” I figured someone would scoop her up and she would never make it to the time when they opened applications up to non-clients.

As usual though, God knew different!

The woman on the hill…the girl at the gate…a torn ACL…surgery…Abby!

Romans 8:28 says, “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.”

God works ALL things…messed up schedules…children in need…broken gates…torn ACL’s…ALL things together for good…

God weaves every single detail of our lives into His amazing plan and He accomplishes His purpose...in our case, bringing home Abby…not one ounce of our suffering is ever wasted!

I prayed to see God BIG in Africa and I did see God big at the time, but looking back now, when I have the benefit of seeing more of the picture…I am overwhelmed at how BIG God is…at how active He is in the details of our lives…He is there, every single day, in every single moment…we just have to watch for Him…

It has been such a blessing to tell you these stories...to remember...to once again be filled with gratitude with the depth of God's love and care for us.

I'll take a break for a day or two and then I'll catch you on some really fun photos from the last week...

Our God is an AWESOME God!