Melvin


Christina and I taking time out to worship.... food for our soul!


Monjue loves the work she does for the Lord. We need a sponsor for her to
continue to see the kids at $40.00 a month.




Monjue our deaf teacher and one of her students. She is holding Melvin.




Kari putting Varney on the scale. His precious mother right there.



Weighing and measuring Varney












After being in Africa for several days and seeing so much pain and suffering I just felt overwhelmed. I came to Liberia focused. and sure that God only had one purpose, for me to help with the special needs children we had in foster care... but oh how my focus became cloudy after I witnessed the overwhelming need.


Could you be calling me to other ministries Lord? Or am I just feeling the pain of so many....



I know from being involved in other ministries that I always felt drawn to the medically needy, the children who desperately needed help but could not get it in a third world country. Like Varney, who only needed a shunt to drain the fluid from his head but could not find a surgeon to do it. Being a nurse for years in the U.S. I felt maybe I had something to offer.



So I took Varney's information and forwarded it back to the States to a neurosurgeon He proceeded to tell me Varney would never make the flight to the United States.

The intense pain I felt when I heard the news.... I just cried.



Being a Christian I knew I had to accept that God was in control, that he loved Varney far more than I did, that he knew ALL things and I did not, but I questioned. Please God, he is just a baby in pain, heal him or bring him healing through a doctors hand.... but I heard nothing.

I so longed for peace.

The next day we all walked across the street to a Foursquare church. The church was hot and only cooled by two large fans. Slowly the people filled the church for "Sunday school" which was only a one hour part of the four hour church session. Now us USA Christians thought at first that this was just a was going to be a really long service, but I was feeling desperate.

You know maybe they are too.....

Because in the U.S. we enter our really nice air conditioned churches, in our really nice clothes, after eating a really nice breakfast and we have very little worry about staying alive.

Staying alive is a daily chore there.


Maybe we all should enter church "desperate" for Christ? Not starving desperate, but desperate for
the touch of God on our lives. Desperate to have him give us power to reach the lost who may even be in our own family. But sadly we don't.



Once worship started I felt home because the spirit of God is universal. We all moved to the front of the church and I was surrounded by brothers and sisters.... I felt the move of God and my spirit began to heal and hope flooded my soul. Yes, God was in control and he would direct my path.

Testimonies
were given and preaching began and to my amazement someone was signing to the congregation.



Now in America we see this all the time, but in desperation, where handicaps are considered a curse, I was shocked. And all of the women in my group from the U. S. looked at each other with joy.


See we have a little boy in our program named Melvin who is deaf. Just to look at this little guy is enough to break you heart. Sucking his little fingers so full of sadness, you can just feel the pain in his anguished heart. We had been wondering how we could help him, how could we ever find someone to sign with him?


Yep, God had an answer.

So after church we talked to this wonderful woman who runs a deaf ministry. She takes in deaf children and has recruited people in her church to foster them. Now she is PASSIONATE about this ministry and Jesus and lets you know it right fromthe start. Because of that meeting we were able to set up for her to go out and teach signing to Melvin, our nurse and the caregivers.

So thank you Jesus for hearing my cry for help, for loving these babies and for
healing my downcast soul.

It all just happens in your timing not mine.

Proverbs 3:5 (NASB)

5 Trust in the LORD with all your heart, And do not lean on your own understanding