"The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face"

On March 9, 2007, we told Karen from Children's Hope Int. that we were interested in hearing more about these two, little boys.  I desperately wanted to see their faces, though Greg thought that perhaps seeing their faces could cloud our judgement.  However, he did feel that it would be a good idea to show pictures to our physician to see if he felt that there could be potential problems, such as fetal alcohol syndrome. 

So, Karen emailed the pictures, and as you can imagine, my heart melted.  I stared at the pictures and carried them with me wherever we went that weekend.  Greg's response was, "I just want to make them smile."  However, believe it or not, we were still unsure if we should proceed.  Fear of not knowing what we would be facing regarding their health, was forefront in our minds.  After looking at the boy's pictures, our physician told us that one of the boys (Josiah) looked as if he could have problems with cerebral palsey because of the way he was sitting in the picture and because of his birth complications.  We were also told that at 22 months of age, one boy was 11 lbs. and the other was 14 lbs.  WHAT?!  Greg was over 10 lbs. at birth.  Eleven and fourteen lbs., at almost 2 years old, just boggled our minds. 

We spent the weekend in prayer.  We kept looking at each other and asking the same question, "What do you think God would have us do?"  We kept answering, "I don't know."  Fear is a paralyzing feeling.  Here were these little boys with no one to love them or care for them.  And here we were just trying to "know" if we could care for them, nomatter their health difficulties; trying to "know" if this was the path for us and them; trying to "know".....  We didn't want to say yes out of pity, but out of obedience to God's leading.  Admittedly, for me (Rebekah), as I read Scripture those two days, nomatter where I started reading, I always ended up reading this verse, Matthew 18:5, "Whoever receives one little child like this in My name receives Me."  I remember driving by myself in the car (going North on 501-I have to say where I was, because there are moments in this journey that are so vivid in my mind), and I said out loud, "God, what do you want us to do?  Just tell us; please, tell us."  My mind immediately went to the verse in Matthew, "Whoever receives one little child like this in My name receives Me."  Then I said out loud, "Oh God, You've already told us what to do."  Amazingly, I wasn't afraid anymore.  I couldn't wait to tell Karen that we would travel to meet the beautiful boys in the pictures, and I couldn't wait to hold them.  BUT...I needed to see where Greg was first. 

So, since Greg is not here to add input to this memory at the moment, you will have to wait until tomorrow to get his perspective. 

(I just want to mention that I am not saying that this verse in Matthew implies that no one should ever turn down a referral.  I'm not saying that we will never be led to in the future.  It is, however, what God used to give peace to my heart and say "follow me in this".)