“Blessed are the poor in spirit.” (Matt 5:3) The words ring out from the page, on my daughter’s tenth birthday. A birthday shared without the one she loves close, beside her. And I think about this word, “Obedient”. About the mom who for a year offered us her own two kids, and how we walked faithful to […]
We talked to each other from across the chain-link fence. Mostly making silly sounds, and seeing if the other would mock or repeat them. I was maybe six, blonde-hair….Even then, eyes seeing distant lands. Doug? Seven-ish. One day, Doug, from across the fence, found a shovel his dad had left in a pile of dirt, in […]
Of all the places in the world, I am not sure why this orphanage in China stuck out to me, glowing in front of me, on my flat screen. Maybe it was because doors closed to our trip to south China and as a result we consecrated ourselves to seek His plan, not ours. And could […]
Like James Bond on a mission with the clock running. Time ticking. Plane leaving. We wind around the streets of Shanghai to come to strong iron gates. Inside, an International School sits resurrected, for all to see. The guard points us in the right direction in Chinese. We drive along smooth cement roads, to find sprawling […]
As one remarkable Chinese daughter lands in America, a boy with bridle bone desperately needs parents, our foster family is frozen in a system which has included a two-year battle, yet our foster daughter is still far from legally free… God reminds me of the value of children. “It would be better for them to be […]
He told me to stay there. In the quiet. In the dark. Many days before flying across the nation. But I wrestled. Didn’t want to hear Him. I struggled like a child wanting to clothe myself in designer jeans to impress the other children at school. “But you will find me there.” The impression was so […]