The afternoon Singapore rains had left puddles in their wake, and choruses of singing frogs met our ears as we arrived at the hospital. My Mom lay resting on her hospital bed, arms wrapped lovingly around the tiny bundle that was my baby brother.
"When is he going to be able to play with me?" my impatient four year old self asked, suddenly realizing that this little guy wasn't quite ready for the games I had been eagerly planning on playing with him. My parents just smiled at each other and turned their attention back to David.
Nine days later, my Mom jolted awake and felt that something was wrong. Rushing to my brother's crib, she saw him, fists clenched, in the bout of a seizure. His forehead was fiery to her cold palm. We rushed out of the house to the hospital, where my Mom spent the next few weeks in a sleepless vigil by my brother's crib.
Encephalepathy, the doctors diagnosed. He had likely contracted it from one of the mosquitoes flying through the open windowed maternity ward. But the biggest shock was yet to come. Teary eyed, my brother's doctor told us that my brother's brain scans revealed he had no Corpus Collosum, the central connection between the two hemispheres of the brain. At that time, the prognosis for infants with such conditions was not good. Most, in fact, became neurological vegetables.
Even at best, the doctor said David would never be able to play sports. He would never be able to play a musical instrument. He would struggle academically. Disheartened but determined, my parents laid my brother before the Lord, hoping and believing that David would be one of the exceptions and that they would love and care for him no matter what happened.
A few months later, a wonderful Filipino woman named Aida moved in with us to care for my brother as my Mom returned to work. Day after day, Aida held David, talked with him, sang to him, and took great care of him until my parents were home from work. Despite constant tears if he was put down, it became apparent that David was actually progressing like most normal infants.
As David learned to walk, his little bowled legs had been placed into wooden and metal leg braces by a Singaporean doctor, which he wore for eighteen months until a US doctor insisted that they be removed so that he could actually walk. Years later, David would become like Forrest Gump incarnate, zooming down the Ultimate Frisbee field faster than anyone else on his team, making passes with both his left and right hands.
When David was about two, my Mom was flying back to Singapore after a solo visit to the US. She happened to sit next to a Neo-natal surgeon who had worked with other babies with conditions similar to David's. As my mom told the doctor about David, his mouth fell open. David's progression was so unlike the norm for other babies with his condition; in fact, the doctor had said that David was pretty much a miracle.
The doctor said that there was a belief circulating the medical field that babies similar to David who had been in contact with human touch, whose brains had been stimulated with sounds, talking, and constant interaction with others, had ultimately created alternative links between both hemispheres of the brain and thus compensated for the lack of a major connection point (the corpus colossum). David was the first actual proof to the doctor that this belief could actually be true.
Twenty five years have passed, and David is a healthy, intelligent, ambidextrous young man who plays guitar, has an MBA, and runs like the wind. I am the proud older sister who is awed by God's gracious hand over David's life.
So why do I tell David's story, especially in view of the World Race? Because David is living proof to me that God is in the business of making miracles happen. While God can make impossible miracles happen instantly, sometimes he chooses to make them happen through something as simple as the spoken word or human touch. Just like Aida and my parents spent countless hours holding David, talking to him, singing over him, and just loving life into him, I pray that God will use me to be His mouth, His hands, and His touch wherever we go in the next eleven months. Who knows… Maybe I'll see some more walking miracles.
And yes, David was eventually old enough to play games with me…that is, until I taught him to play chess, and he learned to outwit and beat me in less than two weeks.
