I can’t believe the time has come. You couldn’t have convinced me 4 months ago that this would have even been possible. I guess that shows my faith level…shameful! Just a little over 4 months ago, I was attending a “sending” church service in the country of Liberia in West Africa on my last day in that country. I was finishing up a mission trip in which I traveled with 2 other women from the US to lead women’s conferences and share the love of Jesus with Liberian women. It was an amazing trip!
During the course of the trip, I had the privilege of meeting a precious Liberian family with a beautiful daughter, Grace. She is absolutely precious and looks perfectly “normal” from all external aspects. However, Grace was born in November, 2009 with an omphalocele, which is basically a birth defect in which some of her abdominal organs were born on the outside of her body. In America, this is a pretty major surgery, but it’s not completely uncommon, and children overcome this condition all the time. However, in Liberia, it’s an entirely different situation.
Grace wouldn’t be alive today if it weren’t for a Chinese surgeon that “happened to be” in Monrovia last spring and had the skills to be able to perform an initial surgery. However, this surgeon informed Grace’s family then that he had to return to China, but they would need to search for someone else to perform a second surgery for her by her 1st birthday, or she wouldn’t live. Receiving that type of news in America would certainly prompt any of us into immediate action…especially those of us privileged to be parents. We would do whatever it takes to get help for our children.
Well, Liberians love just as hard, but “help” is just not as readily at their disposal. Poverty is a way of life, and simply trying to figure out where they are going to get their one meal for the day is about all they can muster most of the time. Finding medical care for a child with a rare condition seems like an impossibility. But, again, Grace’s parents know the same God that I know, and their faith brought them to our conferences and brought them to that Sunday morning service. They knew the 3 American ladies could help their baby. Ouch! Looking back…their faith was so much larger than ours, and they put feet to it!
So…fast forward a few months…through the work of several, Grace and her parents are in Nashville, TN awaiting her life-saving surgery set to happen tomorrow morning at 7:30 CT. This entire process has been nothing short of a miracle. Some of you have followed this story as I’ve blogged about it previously. Thank you for praying for Grace! Don’t stop now! Please pray tomorrow for calm parents, skilled surgeons and staff, and a successful operation. I have the opportunity to travel to Nashville to be with the family and baby for the surgery, so I’ll update you again later. Thanks for yoru prayers blog friends!
I KNOW God is still in the miracle working business!
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