In India we spent the month working with an organization named Sarah’s Covenant Homes. SCH is an orphanage that houses kids with disabilities. As these kids wait to be adopted, they live in family units. Each family unit has up to 9 kids and a house mom. These houses are spread out through a neighborhood in Hyderabad. It was here that the Lord would teach me some of the most valuable lessons through a 7-year old.
This is Gabe.
and this is his chair…
So by the time I arrived to SCH in August, this little guy had been bed ridden for almost two months. For the first week until he got cleared to return to his chair, my job when I would visit his house in the afternoons, was to keep him company. This lead to some of the funniest, yet most vulnerable conversations I’ve ever had.
Blessings
When I met this little man, he was sitting in a bed with so much pent up energy that I thought he would explode. Gabe has Spina Bifida and is paralyzed from the waist down. A few months earlier he had several surgeries so he would be able to regain control of his bladder and be able to live the most normal life possible. The idea was to get him out of diapers and into underwear, which is something Gabe would tell you about any chance he got. He would yell, “I GET TO WEAR UNDERWEAR!” when you would ask why he had to have surgery. I’ve never seen anyone so excited about wearing underwear.
Answered Prayers
We were in South America for the first three months of the race where my Spanish drastically improved. I didn’t want to lose it, so I began to pray that each month for the rest of the race, the Lord would provide someone to speak Spanish with. So for the most part I was able to hold a conversation here or there every month in Spanish. This month Gabe discovered I could speak Spanish and I would sit with him for 30 minutes at a time just telling him words in Spanish. Every time he would be ready for more Spanish, he would look at me and say, “Hey, Speak!” It actually turned into a game. See, Gabe liked to get distracted when he ate dinner, so the deal was that I only spoke if he ate.
Joy
There was nothing more beautiful than the day that Gabe got cleared to get back in his chair! I had spent the morning at another SCH house and several of the other workers had already told me the great news, so I couldn’t wait to go see him! I knew he would be excited, but the joy that was radiating off of him was breathtaking. It was joy in the purest form I had seen it! As soon as I walked up to the gate, he zoomed past me yelling, “Alexis Look!” His smile could not be erased from His face that day, but that’s how he is most of the time. Even when I met him after being in a bed for two months, he was still smiling.
Discernment
There was nothing that could get passed this kid! One day, I came to the home putting on the smiles, but I was having a bad day. Well, he somehow could tell and would not let it go. It didn’t matter how many games of Uno we played, cars we raced, or bubbles I blew that he would pop, he just kept asking, “What’s wrong with you?” in which I would respond, “I’m just tired.” He would then stare at me for what felt like a minute, then he would say, “No. What’s wrong with you?” This conversation happened about 20 times through out that day until I gave in and admitted that I actually was having a bad day. Then he just smiled and said, “Ok. Bubbles?”
Favor
Gabe 100 percent thought that my first day of hanging out with him would be the last. The following day when I returned I was greeted with a, “YOU CAME BACK!?” followed by shouts and a hug. For the next month I was pretty much joyfully enslaved to what Gabe wanted to do. Whether it was jumping on the trampoline, taking photos, or painting, I was his go to person while I was there. And when I wasn’t, my teammates or other people would say that he asked for me. It would just fill me with so much joy every time I would walk into the house and he would yell or drop everything and zoom straight toward me. I would often ask, “What is this??” Then God answered, “I favor you as my daughter, he favors you as his friend.”
Child-like Faith
Gabe loves America. He will ask you to show him pictures and tell him stories. Gabe will also tell you that he’s going to America when he is adopted. He not just believes this, he knows this. It’s in his prayers, it’s on a picture that hangs on a wall by his bed, and it’s in his heart.
God’s Love
I tend to find myself in a place sometimes where I know God loves everyone…but I’m not sure how He feels about me.
Well the Lord answered that…and it wrecked me.
My month in India was amazing. The Lord allowed Gabe to steal my heart. As my month came to a close, I was having a hard time coming to terms with saying good bye. The love I had felt was unlike anything, my heart hurt.
That’s when the Lord told me to really feel the love I had experienced, to sit in it. Then in the subtle and gentle manner that the Lord speaks, he said, “Because I love you more than everything that you are feeling.”
