Your eye is on the sparrow
And your hand it comforts me
From the ends of the earth
To the depths of my heart
Let your mercy and strength be seen
lyrics by Darlene Zschech
Photo: Baby bird who fell from his nest in our backyard.
Hope for Children, our adoption agency, sadly closed down due to the economy. We had adopted all four of our children through this agency so we were extremely saddened by the news. I prayed and asked God to direct us to the right adoption agency. He reminded me of a conversation I had with someone, a year ago, who mentioned what a great experience they had with Christian World Adoption. I went to their website (http://www.cwa.org/) to check out the agency and noticed that they had posted a Waiting Children List for China. By this time, it was October but there was an April, May and June Waiting Children List still posted. I was drawn to the April List since God had spoken to our hearts on April 26, 2009, about going back to China. There were only a few on the list but I was drawn to a little boy with a heart condition who was located in an orphanage in Beijing. There was a video of him on the website. He was so pale and when he walked, it looked like he was going to faint. I thought of the verse, "But those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint" (Isaiah 40:31). After researching his heart condition, I realized that if he didn't get help soon that he would die. Something came over me. I had to save this little boy. I couldn't let him die alone in an orphanage in China with no mother or father to comfort him.
I emailed the agency and asked them if they knew the urgency of getting this child help. I knew that even if we started the adoption process today, it would take months to get him and we would not make it in time to save him. We needed to get him help in China right away. The agency emailed me back by forwarding an email from a family who had tried to adopt him but felt like they could not handle his health needs . They were informed by their cardiologist that, "This child is likely already inoperable due to pulmonary hypertension and once he is inoperable, his only hope would be a heart and lung transplant. He will be 3 in December and by that age, it would likely be too late for surgery." At that point, I would have normally ran as fast as I could from this situation. If you remember, I was already concerned about how was I going to handle another child on top of starting to home school. Now I was looking at a child who had serious health needs but I just couldn't leave him. I asked the adoption agency for updated information on him. They emailed back that the orphanage was no longer giving information on him because he was not doing well. I told the kids to pray for him. Sami wanted to give him a name since we were going to pray for him and named him Ethan which we learned meant "strong". What a perfect name for him. Even if he is weak, God could reverse his situation and make him strong.
I remembered a book I had read a few years earlier, Saving Levi-Left to Die...Destined to Live by Lisa Misraje Bentley. It was about a family who have moved to China and while they were there saved a little baby that was badly burnt. They now had their own orphanage, Harmony House (http://www.harmonyoutreach.org/) and were helping many orphans in China. I also remembered that their orphanage was located in Langfang, China, just outside the city of Beijing--the same city that Ethan's orphanage was in. I emailed, John Bentley, Lisa's husband who started Harmony Outreach, to ask if he could check on him and see if they would allow him to be transferred to their orphanage. I also asked if he would be willing to take him to a hospital to be evaluated by a doctor if we paid for the evaluation. He emailed me back and told me that, "Our donations have dropped off so much (economy) that I and two other US staff members have been on ½ salary for two months. Soon I would have to cut programs in China. Part of our difficulty lies in the fact that we took in so many children with serious heart conditions and other problems that it drained our finances and because we encouraged our donors to give to surgeries – so much money that would have come to Harmony got designated for those projects. In the next month we will have four of our children adopted and so we will have room at Harmony House but we cannot financially stand to take in hard “expensive” cases right now." I asked him how much has he and the other staff members lost over the past 2 1/2 months. He responded back and I felt like God wanted us to help them.
Please don't think I am trying to make you think how great I am for wanting to help them. After building a pool, I would not have given a dime to a Girl Scout selling cookies in the rain but God softened by heart. He also reminded me of The Parable of the Talents in Matthew 25:14-30. The Master was going on a journey and entrusted his property to his servants. He had given talents (money) to his three servants each according to his ability. One received 5 talents, to another two talents and to another one talent. The first two servants put their money to work and doubled their money. The third servant DUG A HOLE IN THE GROUND and hid his Master's money. When the Master returned, he was very pleased with the two servants and praised them. The third servant told the Master, "I knew you were a hard man, harvesting where you have not sown and gathering where you have not scattered seed. So I was afraid and went out and hid the talent in the ground. See, here is what belongs to you." The Master scolded the servant and asked why he didn't, at least, "put the money on deposit with the bankers so that when He returned he would have received it back with interest." Suddenly, I realized that we also had dug a hole and buried our talents (money) in the backyard with the pool instead of being faithful to what God had asked us to do. I don't believe that it is wrong to have a pool but God had told us to put our talents and efforts in starting the process of adoption.
I told Chris about the situation. I asked if we could use some of my retirement to help. He told me "yes". You have to know how amazing this was and that if anyone should boast is to boast of the GREATEST OF GOD because, at this point, Chris would have NEVER let me use retirement and I would have NEVER spent a dime but we were both compelled to do otherwise. I am still amazed how God orchestrated all the events in order to lead us to them so that He could help them by using our hands. John Bentley was blown away by God's goodness and amazed, once again, how God showed up right on time. He also told me that he would have Lily, a director at Harmony Outreach, who was Chinese, try to speak to the orphanage about Ethan's condition and see if they would allow them to help but not to get my hopes up. That night, as I was praying for Ethan, God gave me the words to this poem:
A Child's Desire
There lies a little boy
Helpless, weak, without a toy
He waits and watches his closed door
Because he knows that there is more
More than these four walls
More than these grieving halls
More than his little bed
More than the food he's fed
He yearns the comfort of loving arms
To protect him from all his harms
To cry at night and be heard
To hear the voice of loving words
To walk and not be faint
To play in sand and finger paint
To run with sisters and a brother
To have a father and a mother
These are the desires of a broken heart
Of a child who has some missing parts
God has heard and sees his plight
And will fulfill with all his might
I would later find out that the orphanage would refuse to give any information to Lily, one of the directors of Harmony Outreach, or allow her to help. Lily asked me to have our adoption agency contact the orphanage and, maybe then, they would be willing to talk to her. Our agency did not think it was a good idea for fear it would damage their relationship with the orphanage. Lily also asked me to forward his medical information and she would have a doctor look at them in China. After reviewing his file, the doctor said that there was no way that he could have surgery. I asked her why but she didn't know. At that point, I also decided to have his medical information reviewed by our own pediatrician. A few days later, he called to tell me that the little boy was in bad shape, was probably having a difficult time breathing and didn't even have the make-up to be able to have a transplant. In a gentle way, he told that he would live a very short life. I was devastated. What was the purpose in all of this?
I told Chris about the situation. I asked if we could use some of my retirement to help. He told me "yes". You have to know how amazing this was and that if anyone should boast is to boast of the GREATEST OF GOD because, at this point, Chris would have NEVER let me use retirement and I would have NEVER spent a dime but we were both compelled to do otherwise. I am still amazed how God orchestrated all the events in order to lead us to them so that He could help them by using our hands. John Bentley was blown away by God's goodness and amazed, once again, how God showed up right on time. He also told me that he would have Lily, a director at Harmony Outreach, who was Chinese, try to speak to the orphanage about Ethan's condition and see if they would allow them to help but not to get my hopes up. That night, as I was praying for Ethan, God gave me the words to this poem:
A Child's Desire
There lies a little boy
Helpless, weak, without a toy
He waits and watches his closed door
Because he knows that there is more
More than these four walls
More than these grieving halls
More than his little bed
More than the food he's fed
He yearns the comfort of loving arms
To protect him from all his harms
To cry at night and be heard
To hear the voice of loving words
To walk and not be faint
To play in sand and finger paint
To run with sisters and a brother
To have a father and a mother
These are the desires of a broken heart
Of a child who has some missing parts
God has heard and sees his plight
And will fulfill with all his might
I would later find out that the orphanage would refuse to give any information to Lily, one of the directors of Harmony Outreach, or allow her to help. Lily asked me to have our adoption agency contact the orphanage and, maybe then, they would be willing to talk to her. Our agency did not think it was a good idea for fear it would damage their relationship with the orphanage. Lily also asked me to forward his medical information and she would have a doctor look at them in China. After reviewing his file, the doctor said that there was no way that he could have surgery. I asked her why but she didn't know. At that point, I also decided to have his medical information reviewed by our own pediatrician. A few days later, he called to tell me that the little boy was in bad shape, was probably having a difficult time breathing and didn't even have the make-up to be able to have a transplant. In a gentle way, he told that he would live a very short life. I was devastated. What was the purpose in all of this?
God spoke to my heart and told me that I was trying to save one but He wanted to save many--helping Harmony Outreach continue to meet the needs of orphans in China. I knew that God had saved Ethan, too. Soon he would be running on streets of gold in heaven playing with other children who had been taken too soon for us to understand. I knew that Ethan would not die alone. God would make sure of it. Not a single sparrow can fall to the ground without God knowing it (Matthew 10:29) and God loved him more than I could ever imagine. He would give him a new heart. He would wipe away ever tear and hold him close to His chest. At that moment, I knew Ethan would be whole, have no more pain and be safe in the arms of God. "He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. All these things are gone forever" Revelation 21:4 (NLT).
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