Stoking the fire

We had a foreign friend over for dinner this week.

He and his wife have been living in our city for nearly 10 years now.  They run a coffeehouse.  Since we first met them 3 years ago, we've had a great affinity for them.  Not just because of our shared values, but when we come away from seeing them, we have experienced the warmth one feels when you draw near to a fire and you get warm too. 

I once heard used the illustration addressing that in our spiritual lives, isolation is disastrous.  That just like a fire burning brightly, when you separate out individual pieces of glowing embers that they cool and die.  It is the same with our spiritual lives.  It has been popular for many years to say that "I have my belief, but I don't need to go meet with others each week to keep it." 

I suppose there were times in my life that I've thought the same.  However, now that we live on the other side of the world from our home culture...where the opportunities to meet together are very limited...I see how important the fellowship of brothers and sisters truly is!  We yearn for the luxury of finding a group of like-minded folks on every corner in our hometown to meet with...to share our struggles...to rejoice with...to be reminded to look up and not at everything around us in which we are mired.

Thankfully, we have bright spots of visitors that bring fresh, red-hot embers along with them!  When they arrive, we gather around them and we find ourselves stirred up, glowing red again.  We've been so thankful for a few such visits in the past month.  Each time it seems they bring to us a survival pack of fire...each with a different encouragement to "remember we invest in people, not systems," or "that perseverance produces great fruit in our lives," or to "remember the vision"...these summation phrases represent food for our hungry souls when living Here on an outpost.

During our visit this week with the foreign friends, we were so excited to hear that they too have had a heart to help children like Qian Qian.  In fact, as the wife is a nurse serving at the local hospital part-time, she has doctors willing to identify these families with newly born children with correctable special needs.  It would then be possible to catch them, before they believe they have no other choice but to surrender their baby, to let them know that help is available to get the surgery the child needs, so that the families can remain united.  Truly an orphan-prevention program, to my thinking.

As we shared the story of Qian Qian, our friend's eyes danced with joy as he could hardly wait to tell us about their unity in this burden...and their connections to help the project along!  Many pieces are yet to be revealed to the puzzle, but we all felt literally high in our spirits, catching glimpses of what may be work prepared in advance for us to do!

Before I close this and rattle the beds to wake the slumbering souls...

I was so surprised the other day by two mothers of my students.  Remember, I wrote before out sharing Qian Qian's story with my English class.  I knew that the children's hearts were touched deeply as they considered how they could help others...their tender responses thrill me each time I think on them.  Anyway, two mothers of my students, who heard the story through their children, but themselves who speak little to no English, approached me.  Each woman smiling and warm and they stuffed some money into my closed hands.  "C tell me about baby.  Please help for me." said one mother, then she thanked me over and over.  Then next one, who could muster no English told me in Chinese, "So warmhearted, so thankful, please help his mother."

I have been told a number of times by our friends here that the idea of charity is not a universal concept that enjoys broad support.  In fact, I have seen in my limited conversations with close friends, that at least in some cases this may be true.  I cannot express my joy in having these two local mothers, give to Qian Qian, after the report of their children, my students! Perhaps this seed planted in my student's minds will continue to bear fruit as they mature!

On one other note...

Some time back I wrote about Little Kevin.  (See Hospital posts, September 2010.)  I saw his father yesterday.  Kevin, who was hit by a truck out front of our housing complex and suffered a broken pelvis, has still not returned to school, it has now been 3 months.  I was horrified to hear that his treatment (at 3 years of age) continues at his home, where he is STILL confined to his bed.  He is expected to be kept in bed for the next month...total bedrest...where his body is tied into place.  Three months since he was a happy, super-athletic kid.  Today he has spent the last 3 months tied down in his bed.  I simply cannot imagine it.  When we saw him at the hospital 2 1/2 months ago, I was frightened by how despondent he appeared...what must he be like now?!  At that time they had been relieved that he stopped crying each day and had seemingly surrendered to his fate of remaining in bed.  The emotional toll that must be on Little Kevin, who was Bub's best friend at school...how will he ever recover!?  He is only 3 years old!  Once he completes 4 months of being tied to a bed?

Please, lift him up with us...he is in need of miraculous healing.