He knows...

If you’ve ever visited my house, you would know that as you walk through our clinic door, you are met with the faces of little miracles. As you enter the room where so many emotions are present, you are first met with a wall full of visual reminders. Reminders of our mighty, all-consuming, powerful God who is the ultimate healer and sustainer. You are forced to remember that, ponder it even. And as your eyes are drawn to the faces of past children, God somehow gives you the strength in your heart to keep walking. To keep loving. To keep going. To keep trusting. To face whatever challenge awaits you around the corner…

Just over a week ago this room was full. Overflowing with people. Overflowing with emotions, so, so many emotions. This small red room in the downstairs of my house wears many hats, hats it’s not always intended for….hats that I wish it didn’t ever have to wear. Ever. One day this room holds a little girl in heart failure, the next day a baby on oxygen literally fighting for every breath, and the next, a baby with wounds wreaking of infection. There’s almost always a baby who is being warmed up, or one that’s being cooled down; it’s a never-ending stream! Often in the red room you’ll find a baby who’s contracted malaria or some other sickness, with an IV bag hung high, just dripping away. Almost daily, children come into this room, and soon after they go out. Each one of them different, each one of them unique.

Some stories that take place in our clinic are of physical healing, a healing that is so miraculous that even those who claim to not know Jesus say that they know Christ is the one who saved their baby. But sometimes the end result is not always what we really had in mind... Sometimes I sit in this room hour after hour after hour, praying my heart out for healing; believing with everything in me that a miracle can take place. Believing that it will. Knowing that the God of the universe is holding everything together, that He’s the one truly holding the baby that I am so desperately attempting to, by the worlds standards save. Trusting in HIS will, not mine…

One week ago this calm room was mass chaos…. There were a millions things going on at once, there were so many people in my house, so many…everything. But in the midst of the insanity, lay a small boy. A little tiny boy, all wrapped up and covered in thermal blankets. And even with all the busyness around him, he lay very still. Buried in a heap of blankets and Nalgene bottles full of hot water, he slept. And as he slumbered the low hum of an oxygen machine faded into the noise around him. A clear tube entered into a tiny brown nose where oxygen poured in, giving his lungs some relief. Every once in a while he would open his eyes, just enough to catch a glimpse of him Mom across the room, then they would quickly close again.

The little boy I’m speaking of. His name is, Raheem! Raheem came to Serving His Children from a hospital in Jinja town, he was not showing any signs of improvement so he was referred into our malnutrition program. Upon his arrival he was in pretty rough shape! He was so tiny and wasted, with many (unknown) underlining problems. That day marked the start of some very long days, and nights…. Myself, our staff and volunteers worked around the clock monitoring Raheem. We stayed up during the night; we watched every breath he took 24 hours a day. We all stood by and watched as this little baby lay, fighting for his life, struggling for every breath. We did everything imaginable to make him confortable; we treated every symptom that arose. And we prayed, my goodness did we ever pray. I prayed until I had nothing else to pray, and then, I prayed some more…

Fast-forward 3 days.

Danielle and I could hardly keep our eyes open. We had been doing night shift for the past 4 days, and exhaustion had completely set in. It was 7 am and Raheem was just barley hanging on to life….literally. I had been praying for hours that God would take him. That He would just take away the pain, the hurt that his mere existence was causing his body. But, there we were, Raheem was holding to life, and for some reason God was not seeing fit to take it away from him yet. So we continued on!

At 8am I had one of our volunteers take a blood sample to town… About 40 minutes later I got a call saying that Raheem’s HB was low. Very low. And nowhere in Jinja, and I mean nowhere, had blood for a transfusion. So, we packed up our oxygen machine, hung his IV bag from the roof rack, and sped out the gate…

We headed for a small Catholic hospital that often has blood….but when I arrived I was told that they too had no blood, not only was I told that they didn’t have blood, but that most of Uganda was in a “blood crisis”. The minute I heard that every part of me wanted to vomit. To fall on the floor and lose it. To scream. But I couldn’t, because in the parking lot, hooked up to so many tubes was a little boy that had very much stolen my heart. I had to be strong, keep going, keep searching, keep praying!

I sprinted back to the car. Jumped in, and took off. Off to where, I didn’t even know…

I drove down a random dirt road headed for Kampala. Praying for total guidance, for Jesus to literally take control of my car so as I wouldn’t kill anyone…and as I sped along, leaving only a cloud of dust, my ipod played in the background; tears streamed down my face as I listened to the familiar words.

“This is my prayer in the desert, and all that's within me feels dry, this is my prayer in the hunger in me, my God is a God who provides, and this is my prayer in the fire, in weakness or trial or pain, there is a faith proved of more worth than gold, so refine me Lord through the flames. And I will bring praise, I will bring praise, no weapon forged against me shall remain, I will rejoice, I will declare, God is my victory and He is here. And this is my prayer in the battle, and triumph is still on it's way, I am a conqueror and co-heir with Christ, so firm on His promise I'll stand. All of my life in every season, You are still God, I have a reason to sing, I have a reason to worship.”

That was pretty much my exact prayer. That HE would be Raheem’s victory. That HE would be my victory. That I would not measure the end result of the day by what I thought was “victorious”, but by what God knew was true triumph! I was fighting in the battle, but God was commanding it, he held all the cards, my job was trusting him fully to play them. Easier said then done when you have a sinking feeling in your gut that things aren’t really going in your favor…

3 hours later…..

I found blood! We just had to get to it…. Oxygen was finished and I had been driving and bagging Raheem at the same time, it was working, but wasn’t exactly safe. My sister and 2 of my best friends in the world came to my rescue!!! They met me along the road with the oxygen cord, another set of hands to drive and some emotional support! We all pilled in and headed to the clinic that was said to have 2 units of A+ blood! We made it in record time, and got Raheem all set up for the transfusion. Then, we waited. We watched. We prayed. After the transfusion was completed, we packed up our things, and began driving into Kampala; where Raheem would be admitted into a hospital in the city…

Now here comes the tough part of the story. The reason that this blog post has been sitting on my computer unfinished for days… the reason that even now, after days of thinking and processing and praying, I still cannot think of a way to bring what you’ve been reading to a close.

I selfishly wish the end to this story was different! I wish the end was just that, Yay, he got blood, now he is happy and healthy. But that’s not the case, well I mean I suppose it is in a way. Because Raheem is happy, healthy, and very much whole! He is, at this very moment whole in the arms of Jesus!

That very day, not long after we left the hospital Raheem passed away. God decided it was time. I will never understand why He waited for that moment, but He did. He decided to bring Raheem home right there in the car, surrounded by people who loved him, who were praying for him, and who in the end rejoiced in his going home!

Raheem is forever ingrained in my memory. The face of that little boy will always flash through my mind, and I will probably forever wonder why things happened the way they did that day. That’s not to say I don’t fully trust in God’s perfect plan, because I do. I know every single thing that took place on that dreaded Tuesday was not without purpose or great reason. So I rest in that. I rest in the fact that God DID win the battle, in more ways than one. He was victorious! He was glorified!

I might not have seen the full picture that day, in fact I know I didn't, and I may never. I was busy fighting, but only in one very small part of the field. God was over the entire battle, He didn’t miss a thing, and the whole time He knew what was coming next! And that’s just it, He knows; He always knows whats about to come our way!