We are ending our time here in Malaysia and it has honestly been a whirlwind of a month, on personal, spiritual, and emotional levels. From not being able to say the word missionary out loud, to not knowing where we are going to stay as a team or where we were going, to questioning if I was really supposed to be on the race. The Lord has been testing my heart and my faith in difficult ways, leading me to ask when I would experience his presence, when I would see the fulfillment of the reasons why I wanted to come on the race and when he would start revealing his will to me. And I wish this blog was going to be a great explanation of how all of these things actually came to pass and how I had huge revelations and experiences to settle the whirlwind, but those things have not happened yet. So while I want to share and be honest about what I am walking through, I also want to share a story about a piece of what we have been able to do here and how God has opened doors for our team to serve him.
My team had the opportunity to do ministry with a lady name Happy who works with families at government flats, mostly doing feedings. When we arrive at these three identical large white buildings that are over 20 stories high and very plain looking and happy tells us that we are going from family to family to talk to them and pray with them. Throughout the morning we visited all three buildings and saw a total of about 15 families.
One flat that we visited really hit me. There were two boys in front of the tv and a bed in the corner of the living room with a lady sitting down holding a small child. At first I didn’t notice anything different about this baby, just that it was probably really young. I couldn’t even tell if it was a boy or a girl. Once I got closer and the lady started moving around, I could tell that it was a little girl and that she was very undernourished and had a severe case of what looked like cerebral palsy. She picked her up and handed her to Happy and she was very skinny, stiff and couldn’t make noise or see straight at all. I was honestly nervous that she was going to pass her to me because I didn’t even know how I would hold her because she was so frail. Happy handed her back and asked me if I would pray for her, so I did.
Right in the middle of praying, without expecting it at all, I just started crying. I hadn’t felt any emotion up to that point, but was just kind of numb taking in everything I was seeing. I couldn’t speak for a moment as I was touching this little girls thin legs and looking at her face as the woman held her still, with her mouth open and trying to make a sound but not being able to. I had found out that she was over two years old and had a twin who died at birth and even though she had lived, she was completely neglected by her mom. She was unable to swallow solid foods because of this neglect and of her lack of brain function. The mother had handed her off to this lady at the flats to take care of her, but because she does not have enough money to give her therapy the little girl is not able to intake solids or improve any of her functions at all. This leaves her severely undernourished and they told us that she would probably not live for too much longer. As I was praying I thought about how incredibly sad it is for this tiny child, who hasn’t done anything at all, to have a very small hope of developing fully and living a long life.
I thought about my niece and how I don’t often focus on the fact that she is perfectly healthy and has parents who would do anything to provide for her, it is just kind of what is expected. But truly it is a huge blessing, to be healthy and to have hope of living an abundant and long life simply by that fact alone. I was so beyond thankful for my health and especially for the health of my niece who is just a baby and has not experienced much life at all yet, just like this little girl. God has different plans for each of these two children, but his love for them is the same, his love for me is the same. This little girl at the flats may not live beyond 4 years old, but she has a Father who loves her like crazy and had purpose in the life he gave her. He saw her life as good and gave her breath when she could have easily died with her twin.
Our God is so gracious and loving and he wants this little girl to know his love as much as he wants me to know it and as much as he wants all of his children to know it. His love and grace do not change for anyone, he is always good and he is always working in the midst of a situation that looks hopeless. He is not frivolous in giving this little girl life no matter how short it may be, but he has great plans for her. She did nothing, but he used her to show me the great capacity of his love. He used her to show me the hope we have simply in knowing him as Father. He is using the fragile life of this little girl because he is gracious and he loves his children fiercely. His measure of grace is enough.
