Beautiful & New

Finally, I can follow up on that post from November.

My parents had called a few days before to tell me my niece would be born on Monday, Kansas time. I’d had my cell phone at hand ever since.  I was so anxious, tapping its light weight in my pocket, checking the time every few minutes.

I knew better than to worry. Remember that post I wrote last year? I talked about Matthew 6, knowing that God is taking care of things. I wasn’t worried. I was just excited that my niece would finally be here.

We went on a picnic with our host family that morning. Everyone had gone down to the Bagmati River to swim when the phone finally rang. While they splashed in the muddy water, I paced around in the shade with the phone pressed to my ear. Tears streamed into the corners of my beaming smile as my parents told me how to spell her name, how her hair was dark, how she looks just like Lora did. They put me on speaker-phone so I could say hi to all the Hines’ and Cox’s in the room.

The thought had crossed my mind that hearing my new niece’s cry, knowing her name, missing that unforgettable day in the maternity ward with my family would make me want to fly home next week instead of continuing on to Ukraine with my squad. But God is faithful. Even after hanging up from that long-anticipated phone call, I still had peace about being where I am. So I grabbed my towel and ran down to the river.

The girls and I sat tonight (like every other night) on the floor of the church, talking over two candles and the distant sound of thunder. I knew that today would be one I’ll talk about a lot in the future, so I asked them to share their own “defining days” from the past 9 months. We talked until the candles had burned to the floor. Each story we shared focused on the hard stuff: the impossible decision, the tearful conversation, the dirty job no one else would do. He provided abundantly through all of it. He is the main character in all of our stories. 

Including this one: I began my journey on the World Race talking about “Lilies & Sparrows” … and I’ll end it by meeting Lily.

Here she is! Lilian Juliette Cox, born on May 16, 2011, 11:06pm (KS time), perfectly healthy. There is no one else in the world with whom I’m more excited to share this year’s stories. It will be a while before she can understand, but in the background of everything that happened, I was waiting for her.

-Aunt Katie