Part of our ministry in Uzhgorod is to go to the local children’s hospital to hold and love on the abandoned infants there. I absolutely love this ministry and wanted to do it more our second week here. However, God had different plans for my ministry during week two. Little did I know but He had divine appointments set up for us as we walked to the hospital.
The first day my plans of holding and loving infants was interrupted, I was walking with Michael and Rudy (our Ukrainian friend) to the hospital. Rudy sees a missionary from England that he knows so we stop for what was supposed to be two minutes as we were already late getting to the hospital. As we sat down, Andrew, who is from England, began to tell us about his plan to set up home orphanages in the area and the obstacles that he has run into during this process. He began to tell us how he grew up in a Catholic church and then just two weeks ago, Jesus grabbed his heart and he not only had religion but he had relationship. He began to tell us about the children that would grow up in these home orphanages instead of state orphanages and how they would have a godly upbringing and would hopefully pass that on down through their families for generations. He talked with such passion and exuberance, when he could have been defeated because of all the obstacles he’s faced. God has a great plan for Andrew’s life and for the cause that Andrew has dedicated himself to. You can check out his ministry here: http://www.takehope.org.uk/. So after spending more than an hour talking with Andrew we missed our opportunity to go love on the babies but we got to hear from an incredible man about his mission and we get to help spread his cause which will impact hundreds of orphans in Ukraine.
The next day, I again planned to go to the hospital since my plans were interrupted the first day (in a great way though). Lauren and I decided we would go to the hospital for an hour and then two of our other teammates would come get us and we would go into the square to do some relational ministry. Lauren and I are walking to the hospital and we were having a conversation. Suddenly a man approaches me and begins to talk with me in English. He starts asking all sorts of questions and we tell him about what we are doing. In his attempt to understand what we are doing, he asks if we are like the Peace Corps. From there our conversation transitions to talking about Jesus and then to the Orthodox Church and an Evangelical church. He occasionally goes to an Orthodox church here but had lots of questions about Jesus and our relationship with him. We ended up talking with him for nearly 40 minutes when he realized he was late and his lunch was over. We got his number and hope to continue our relationship with him and have more conversations with him. For the second day in a row, God set up a divine appointment for me to run into while on the way to the children’s hospital and my plan of the children’s hospital would not work out.
The next day, I finally made it to the children’s hospital. When Lauren and I arrived, three Ukrainian students who were loving on the babies were just leaving. We asked them if there was only the two babies that were in the room. They say yes, and so Lauren and I begin to play with them. About 45 minutes later, both babies have fallen asleep for their afternoon nap. We put them in their cribs and are preparing to leave even though we had only been there for 45 minutes (we try to stay for at least 1.5 hours). As we are preparing to leave, I hear another baby crying in another room so we go check it out. A newborn was in another room. We stay and love on this new born and leave about 45 minutes later. On our walk back, we run into a group of American students from Auburn who are in the area for a mission’s trip. We are hoping to connect with them and do some ministry with them while they are here. Had we left when we originally were going to and had we not heard that baby crying, we would have missed the opportunity to love on this newborn and would have missed this Auburn group all together.
When God interrupts your plans, you know that He has something big in store. That has been completely evident this past week.
"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord.
