God truly gives us the desires of our hearts ~ even if we don�t know just what those desires are! Just two weeks ago, we would have never guessed what God had planned for this next step in our lives. In fact, my guess is that if we had known, we may have felt like Jonah and tried to run as fast and far as we could have away from His plan for us! Who could have possibly guessed that He was about to turn our world upside downIt all started with an e-mail from Perry Jansen, our doctor here at ABC (Click here to read journal - it will be worth it!). I have enclosed his e-mail if you would like to read it as well. After reading it, Larry and I wondered what we could do. Surely there was some small part we could play to help save the lives of these children? We went to the ABC Clinic to talk to him about the possibilities. He told us of a little three-month-old boy whose mother had just died two days ago. His father had died several months ago, before he was born. His mother had named him �Muzuzu� which means �troubles�. Now there was no one to love and care for him. Social Welfare as a temporary shelter had placed him with the Dimmocks but Nancy Dimmock was going out of the country for a week � could we care for him for that week?
Bringing a baby into the mix of our lives had certainly not been part of our plans, but if it could make a difference in this little life, we were happy to be able to help out and (most importantly) we felt that this was God�s direction for us. We prayed that we would be open to God�s direction as to what part He would want us to play in the life of this little one. By the end of the week, we were hooked. He had charmed his way into our lives in a way that we can only be amazed about. Yes, we did provide him with loving care, but what he gave back to us was a multiplication of what we gave to him. He stretched us and bonded us to him in a way we would have never thought possible.
Marrying late in life, Larry had not experienced any �baby� events � like feeding, diapering and burping, but he took to his new role like a duck to water and has turned out to be a wonderful, loving �daddy�.
When the week was over, we shared with them how he had changed our lives, and that we wanted to offer him a permanent home. We were absolutely heartbroken when they came and took him away in order to comply with the Social Welfare regulations. We immediately began to work towards getting �our� baby back. We will call him Carey Atupele Brown, after William Carey, the �father of the modern missionary movement�. Atupele is Yao (he is from the Yao tribe) for �The Lord has given us�. I guess �Brown� is self-explanatory J.
While I was visiting Nancy and Carey the next day, the lady from Social Welfare called. She had another baby for Nancy to keep, a one week old infant who had been abandoned by her mother at the hospital � could she take her? Nancy said she was too overwhelmed to take another baby, but if they would allow me to take �our� baby back home� then she would be able to do so. A quick arrangement was made, and baby Carey is back home with us. Praise God!
Does God give us the desires of our hearts? He sure does ~ because it is He who puts them there! We would have never dreamed this for ourselves, but God knew this little boy needed a loving home and that we had a store of love to give.
***Please join us in prayer for little Carey
~ PRAISE GOD CAREY HAS TESTED HIV NEGATIVE!!! This is truly an answer to prayer!
~ We are now in the process of working through the long process to officially adopt Carey as our son. He has a maternal aunt which must be found and papers signed for his release for adoption. This is proving to be a challenging task to find her. Please pray for God to intervene and allow all of this "red tape" to be worked out. |
