their stories...

“A million is just a statistic until you meet one…”

Never has it been more clear to me that my life is not my own than in this current place in time.  I have moments where the lack of control sends me into a tail spin…I want to know what will happen next; I want to plan for future…and the uncertainty makes it impossible to plan for lunch let alone anything farther. 

However, there is also a peace that I have never known before at any other point in my life. 

I can feel God’s presence like never before.

I can sense Him leading me and directing me. 

The peace of God draws me to Him. 

It was His voice that has whispered to my heart things that do not make any sense in the moment only to realize days later that His Providence is perfect if only I still myself to listen. 

A little over one month ago, I picked up a statistic and held that number in my arms.  In that moment, all of the numbers melted away and I saw him.  

His name is Alexander. 

It was not a name picked out through months of perusing books or family histories…

it was a name picked out by the women who started his abandonment paperwork. 

We, by God’s design, were at the INFHA offices to learn about the foster parent process by watching another family sign paperwork allowing them to be a substitute family.  We watched as he was carried in a pile of towels by a Honduran police officer…it was a sight like none I have ever seen…machine gun draped carelessly against his back while he held this baby wrapped in towels like a casserole. 

My heart immediately wanted to know this child’s story.  Where was he going?  Where has he been?  What is going to happen to him? 

Tara, who is known for her persistence when it comes to fighting for these children, also wanted to know his story and where he was going.

While we waited to find out his story, we met another little boy around 6 years of age.  He had been found in the park.  He was giddy and silly and wanted to run and play.  We had all of our kids with us as well as Tara’s son, Josef, so we look like a fun crowd…we asked if he could come and play with us outside and the overwhelmed office ladies gladly obliged our request. 

His name is Chico. 

Chico is missing both his front teeth, like Calvary.  He laughs at silly jokes and loves pizza.  The coke he was drinking seemed like a bad idea, but he certainly enjoyed it! I am not sure most of his story, but I do know that he is at the public orphanage now instead of sleeping in the park where he was found.  And although the public orphanage is no place for a baby, it is very much a better place for a boy of his age compared to sleeping in the park. Every time we visit there he remembers us and plays with our kids. 

Alexander was supposed to go to the public orphanage that day.  We were supposed to drive him there. 

Tara was not going to let that happen without a fight.  Babies have a very difficult time at the public orphanage because of the high number of special needs children that they have there.  Babies need more attention than most children…and without that attention, they don’t thrive. 

So Tara fought and Alexander came home with us. 

I felt God urging me to care for this baby…to stay with him.  We realized quickly that he had not even had his first bath yet...his umbilical cord was tied off with a string.  He was not born in the hospital, for sure.  We took him home and bathed him and took him to the hospital for blood work and an exam. 

He was healthy.  7 pounds of God’s most perfect handiwork…. arguably a little hairy…but the most perfect, hairy angel you have ever seen. 

I felt such an urging to stay and care for Alexander…Tara still had C3 working and she was also scheduled to go back to the States for 2 weeks…I felt strongly that Alexander needed a consistent caregiver in order to establish healthy attachment and growth.  

So, Kyle and I decided to stay and seek God.  What are we supposed to do?  Where are we supposed to be? 

I told God that I needed Him to write what he wanted us to do on the wall…it was going to have to be exceptionally clear if He wanted us to stay…Honduras was not in our plans.

In that 2 week time of seeking we were introduced to another little boy and his caregiver, Kacey, who came to live with us at the Garcia’s house. 

His name is Jesus.

I am writing this blog at a table while he hungrily shoves cereal in his little mouth.  Jesus is a fighter like no one I have ever met.  In the month that I have known him he has battled fever, infection, appendicitis, and he only just left the hospital on Sunday after receiving treatment for infected shunts for his hydrocephalus and receive new shunts.  Kacey has written more about his story here (www.kaceybolin.wordpress.com).  It is impossible to not love him.  It didn’t take us long to realize that, aside from his physical differences, he is much like many typical 6 year old boys.  Kacey has taken the time to know him.  She speaks to him in a way that shows that he understands and he responds to her showing that she is correct to assume so.  Calvary loves Jesus.  He talks to him and gives him toys.  It brings tears to my eyes just to write about the things Jesus has shown me about Calvary.  Harper, Calvary, and Oliver Jack made pictures to decorate his hospital room and almost every picture includes Jesus running, climbing, and smiling freely as he plays.  They want to see him whole.  The desire of Kacey’s heart is to see Jesus in his forever home. 

The desire to see Jesus in a forever home is the exact desire that has been in my heart for Alexander. 

I felt like God was telling me to stay in the gap with him until he is home.  Kacey has expressed that the Lord has placed the same desire on her heart for Jesus. Our prayer and request that God would make that calling clear was made abundantly clear when Tara and Jorge learned that they would unexpectedly have to return to the States.  

In one instant we realized that we were going to be standing in the gap for more than Alexander. 

God has also shown us that we are excellent gap fillers and I am really beginning to love that role!

Not long after we learned that Tara would not be returning from the States we also learned that a baby girl who captured the hearts of the group visiting from Texas was going to be released into our care from the public orphanage. 

Her name is Eda.

Eda is 2 months old and, much like Alexander, God placed a sense of urgency on the hearts of a couple working here from the group in Texas.  Even when they returned to their home in Texas they prayed for her…that she would be released from the orphanage and that she would be placed in a family.  It was with joy that we were able to share that she was no longer sleeping in an orphanage.  She is beautiful.  She has the most precious pouty lip that puckers just as she is about to cry.  She also has the deepest brown eyes.  We have decided that Eda and Alexander are going to be best friends and they seem to support that decision. 

I like to lay Eda and Alexander down together and let them play side by side.  I marvel at God’s Providence and how all too often we focus on numbers when it comes to greatness. 

We like to say things like, “1 million dollars was donated!” or “1 million people accepted Jesus into their hearts” because we view the volume as great.  But the Lord looks at each giver’s heart that is attached to each of those million dollars.  The Lord knows each one of those million hearts that have invited Him into their hearts. 

If it would have been 1 dollar, the Lord would rejoice in the same way.  If it would have been on heart, the Lord would rejoice in the same way. 

Jesus would have died on the cross to save one.  I know this.

I believe that is why the Lord is showing me that it is important to tell others the names of these children.

The statistics are staggering here…

More than 1 in 5 children under the age of 5 are stunted in growth due to malnutrition.

Honduras, as of 2010, has more than 200,000 orphans that make up a heart breaking number of their population.

2 in 5 children that start school, never finish. 

These numbers are staggering.

Yet, when I stop and attach a name and face to each one of those numbers it is even more painful. 

So today, I am thanking the Lord for the Hope He has given us through Eda, Jesus, Chico, and sweet Alexander.

He reminds me that He sees each one.  He knows each face. 

And because of that love, I can follow Him anywhere and trust Him through anything.  I am not just a number.  We are not just numbers.

Even when He asks us to move to Costa Rica and leave the life we made in the United States behind us, I can trust Him.

Even when He then asks us to stay in Honduras and leave the life we made in Costa Rica behind us, I can trust Him. 

Most of the time following the Lord doesn’t make sense until it just suddenly does.

So, just as I have never been more convinced that my life is not my own as much as I have in the past few months….I have also never been more convinced that I am intimately and personally loved as I have been in the past few months. 

"'Though the mountains be shaken and the hills be removed, yet my unfailing love for you will not be shaken nor my covenant of peace be removed,' says the LORD, who has compassion on you." (Isaiah 54:10 and my new favorite verse :) )