Today I got to name a baby. I also got to make apple crisp. I know naming a baby is a lot different from creating a baby and it is also a lot different from making apple crisp but God gave me and my team the blessing of creating today.
During our ministry, we were going door to door looking for children who want to go to school but can’t afford to go. We stopped at a lady’s house and asked her if she had any kids that needed to go to school. She told our translator that she didn’t have any kids in the age group for the school, but she also asked him if we could take one of her children. She wanted to give us one of her children. I’ve never had someone ask me to take their child and recognizing that she was doing it because she was unable to support them and wanted her child to survive made me have a deeper understanding of sacrifice. We told her we couldn’t take her baby, but we could pray for her family. We prayed for her family and her baby, who is just 2 months old. After praying for her we continued to talk with her to get to know her. We learned her children’s names, but her baby didn’t have a name. The moment she said that God told me that the baby’s name is Isaac. We asked her why she hadn’t named her baby yet and she said he was a surprise so she hadn’t thought of a name. Then she told us that we could name him if we wanted to. Giving up naming her baby is yet another form of sacrifice. She was giving up control and giving us a huge honor. We’ve known this woman for 15 minutes and she is letting us name her baby. We prayed over the baby and God was still telling me Isaac. When I said that my teammate, Nadia, said that she was thinking of the same name. So the baby officially has the name Isaac. We all got to hold him and bless him and we plan on going back and visiting him and his family often.
Today is Canada’s Thanksgiving. My other teammate, Andrea, is Canadian so she asked us if we could celebrate. To celebrate, we decided to make a dish and Andrea picked apple crisp. It was a full house effort. We got a recipe from one of the girl’s moms, Jacquie got the ingredients at the super market today, and about 10 people contributed to making it. While making a simple dessert we also made home for all of us as well as a family here.
I love how God blessed us with the power to create things. He let Adam name every animal in the world. We get to create food, our moods, our schedules, clothes, art, and ideas. It’s something that only humans get to do. God gave us such an honor when he let us have the power to create because it also means we have the power to create something negative. We can create a negative work environment or living situation and history shows that humans have created even more destructive things like wars. But God loved us enough that he trusted us to create for good. I hope and pray I'm creating a life that is pleasing to God.
Here are some sweet pictures of baby Isaac! 🙂
