His Plans

I had several errands on the other side of the river yesterday. I ended up eating lunch at a restaurant in the complex of the hotel Scott and I stayed in when we first came to Shanghai to consider the possibility of moving our family here. We had eaten our breakfast in this place our first jet lagged morning.

Here I was again, only three months shy of four years later, dining in this same establishment. Shanghai is a different city to me now than it was then. No longer foreign and unfamiliar, it is my home.

There was something even more striking to me in that lunch yesterday, more than remembering my first meal in a new city. I was not eating alone yesterday. I had a little companion, one I couldn't even have fathomed joining me had I considered it four years ago.

I've mentioned the Baobei Foundation, the organization I volunteer for that provides surgery for orphans with nuerological and gastrointestinal birth defects. A big part of Baobei's process involves placing these babies in foster homes among the expat community to gain strength and heal post surgery.

Well, we had a little guy arrive in Shanghai recently with a medical need that requires surgery, but he was so tiny our doctor recommended he put on some weight first and we plan the surgery for January. I had helped arrange a foster family for him, but they weren't available to take him until mid-December.

Well, you can guess what transpired. The girls have been begging to get to take care of a Baobei baby in our home. Scott has been quick to remind them that that isn't part of my job with Baobei. But this time we knew it would be short, only a couple of weeks...

So this little one has been with us now for nearly a week. I had forgotten the physical effort required to care for one so new... but what I didn't forget is the time cuddled together on the couch, with the Christmas lights twinkling beside me, feeding a baby. Having a baby forces you to slow down, to leave other things undone, to sit, to rock, to look into little eyes that stare back unblinking. I remembered this. I wanted to have to slow down and sit, especially at Christmas.

Oh, my arms have ached with the fatigue of muscles that haven't been used this way in a long while. I've lost a little sleep, up in the night making and feeding bottles. But what a privilege and a joy it's been to have little Michael in our home. He has helped us all slow down, to sit and reflect by the light of the Christmas tree.

Who would have thought, on that February morning nearly four years ago, that just a few years later I would have the opportunity to love on a baby with no family? That a beautiful, orphaned boy would sit with me on my couch and listen to Christmas music with me? That we would dress him up in a little red sweater and take his picture holding a candy cane? That we and our friends would have the chance to pray over him and read scripture to him? That we would wonder about where God will place this little one, what his life will look like? I couldn't have imagined, in February 2007, that I would eat in that restaurant again with an orphan cuddled on my lap.

"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek Me and find Me when you seek Me with all your heart. I will be found by you," declares the Lord. Jeremiah 29:11-13