WHAT IN THE WORLD IS A MISSIONARY?

The mission field. Now there’s a broad term. Where is it, this “mission field” we refer to so loosely in the church today?

How does one define “the mission field”? Is it a place that is on another continent? Is it somewhere that I am not used to being? Does it have to be a foreign land? Must it be a nation where the lifestyle is very different from my own, where the language and food and culture are unfamiliar to me? Does “the mission field” have to be poor? Or hot? Or a long way from home?

For my grandparents, missionaries sent to the fields of India and China, the term was quite specific – the mission field was a foreign land unreached by the Gospel, and one from which you may never return. My father, seen here on his 80th birthday, was born in India, raised in China, then interned as a POW by the Japanese when war broke out. I will never understand, no matter how I try, the cost that he, his parents and sister counted to be on the mission field all those years ago. He has kept a sweet spirit and a gentle, forgiving nature despite all that he went through. Now there’s a big clue to the thesis that follows…

I am a product of a Christian family and I have sensed that “missionary calling” – whatever it may be - pulsing in my veins for most of my life. Now I live in Mozambique and the longer I live here, the broader my definition becomes.

I have worked in a variety of jobs over the years – teaching, church administration, retail, nannying, waitressing... My very first job as a teenager? “Hello, this is St Ives Sports and Toys. Can I help you?” said of course in the most grown-up tone a fifteen-year-old can muster.

As I mentally retrace the timeline of my life, I can detect few patterns, many unexpected detours, loads of unfulfilled dreams and much boredom interspersed with very occasional bouts of excitement and fulfilment. It was during those rare seasons of delight that I received a tiny taste of all that I was hoping for and felt the heightened tension between the now and the not-yet. I knew that I knew that something bigger and better and more wonderful was just around the corner. But what was it and how would I get there? Was it... wait for it... drum roll please... “the mission field”?

I am a dreamer. I always have been. I have longed and hoped and dreamed big all my life. When people tell me to dream bigger, I laugh because I cannot imagine what bigger is. Perhaps that is what God means when he talks about the “exceeding abundantly more than all we can ask or imagine...” But bigger than MY dreams? Is that really possible?

Then it dawns on me. Of course it is not possible. If it were possible, I would have been there a long time ago. It also dawns on me that, if I had been able to find my own way there, in my own timing, I would not have coped with what I found when I arrived. I would have enjoyed the view for just a moment then choked to death on all the circumstances I was not yet equipped to deal with.

I look back now and the pattern finally becomes clear, the common denominator in all my jobs and relationships and trials and joys and sorrows – everything has been a preparation for now. And now is a preparation for what comes next. So even here, living in Mozambique, the quintessential “mission field” for the hard-core “missionary”, I still feel that tension between the now and the not-yet.

You see, all these years were not a preparation for the mission field. They were preparation for discovering greater depths of the heart of Jesus. Plumbing those depths will never, ever end because the heart of Jesus is bottomless and the goodness of His will for the earth unending.

I do not belong on the mission field. I belong in the perfect will of God.

If I am in the perfect will of God, doing all that He asks me to do, then I have found my mission field, no matter where in the world I am. I happen to live in Mozambique because, for now, this is where God needs me to be - for what I can give and also for what He wants me to receive.

Somehow, in God’s economy, giving and growing go hand-in-hand. The more I give, the more I grow. He has placed me, in every season of my life, in exactly the spot He has wanted me to be. Now, here in this nation so rich with possibilities and so desperate for breakthroughs, I receive so much more than I can give no matter how fast I try to pour myself out on the needs around me. This is the perfect economy of God.

I love that God has brought me here and that I am in His perfect will. I love the mission field in which He has planted me for now. Not because it is easy (it is not). Not because it is fulfilling (it is occasionally). Not because I get to pour out all that I am (some days yes, some days all I want to do is hide away and pretend I am somewhere else).

I still dream. I still search for ways in every day to express my passions. I still sense that heightened tension between the now and the not-yet. The difference now is that, instead of stepping out on my own to fight my way into the future, I am trusting God to lead me there one day at a time, via the mission fields of His choosing, where I am needed and where I need to be.

He is teaching me to squeeze all the possibilities out of each of the days between the now and the not-yet.

So, what does your mission field look like? Where is it? And when, oh when, will you get there?

If you are able to say that you are following God the best way you know how, obeying His voice one whisper at a time, and that tomorrow you plan to do the same, then look around you and take a deep breath.

You’re standing in it.

You can call me a missionary if you like, but only if you are willing to use the term for yourself as well. I am a simple Christian woman doing my best to live God’s way, one day at a time. I am no more nor less valuable to the Kingdom than anyone else. Today I will give of myself, as you will. And today I will pray that I grow a little more in grace and patience and wisdom, as I pray for you also.

Yes, I live in a nation full of needs. So do you. Together, let us walk through another day serving God the best way we know how, encouraging one another in the work of the mission field in which each of us is planted for now.

The harvest is plentiful in your field and in mine, so let’s get to work.

HIS GRACE IS SUFFICIENT

Last night there was a gecko in my bed. It was only a small gecko but the size is not relevant – it was a slithery lizard and it did not belong where it was. I evicted the invader quickly and with minimum fuss, flicking it gently out from under my mosquito net which, by the way, is meant to keep such interlopers away at night. I know there are geckos residing in the rafters because I wake each morning to look up at new deposits of gecko droppings on top of my crisp white net – just one of many good reasons to use a mozzie net in Africa. The geckos are welcome to share my room so long as they are on the outside looking in while I sleep at night.

I tell you this story by way of proving how very far God has brought me since I left Australia in January 2008 and how very deeply He has worked in me, to bring me to peace and contentment and joy. Yes, even with a gecko on my pillow. Oh how far I have come!

I am of the firm belief that the grace of God is sufficient for anything to which He calls us. There is the danger that some of you may think me trite, especially on this oh-so-holy day of the year, to be thanking God for the grace to live with lizards. Be that as it may, I do see His provision and strengthening in new ways every day here and, so very often, it is in relation to creatures with which I would never choose to associate back home.

Last week His grace was sufficient when I had to deal with the huge rat hiding in the rice sacks stored just outside my front door. The rice is bagged up for the food packages given out each week. Did I mention that it was a rat and it was huge? So huge in fact that even the Mozambican men who came to rescue me commented on how huge it was. When I said “I had to deal with the huge rat”, what I meant was that I sent out an SOS to the workmen next door to come and rescue me.

His grace was sufficient when a cockroach fell onto my shoulder and crawled across my arm while I was praying. His grace was sufficient when an ant started biting me in an embarrassingly inaccessible spot while I was having a meeting outdoors with someone I had only just met. His grace was sufficient when a mouse ran between my feet as I chased it with the electrified tennis racquet I normally use for zapping mosquitoes. The proof that His grace is sufficient is in the fact that I find it hilariously funny to chase a mouse as I wield what I affectionately call my “fanger”. My friend Vella killed a mouse with a dustpan. Splat. I like her style.

His grace is sufficient when the heat saps my strength and leaves me feeling weak and dizzy. His grace is sufficient when more toddlers than I can possibly carry all want to be cuddled at once, running at me and knocking me over in the sand. His grace is sufficient when the bananas – again! – get infested with fruit fly within hours of my buying them. His grace is sufficient when the rain pours in my window and floods the drawers, the floor and my clock radio.

His grace is sufficient when I walk into the Baby House and think of Dino who died a few months ago. I miss Dino’s smile and his giggle and his funny little run when he would rush to me for a hug.

His grace is sufficient as I watch, speechless, helpless, while a young woman drags herself across the busy, blisteringly hot road on her hands and knees, unable to walk.

His grace is sufficient when I am asked for money and food and even for my shoes by the poorest of the poor. His grace is sufficient when I am racked with guilt as I keep my shoes on and walk away.

You see, His grace is sufficient for all He calls us to. Some days, His grace enables me to laugh and other days, to cry. Some days His grace lifts me up to thrive and, other days, grips me tight enough just to survive. His grace – the grace that led Him to the Cross where He gave His life for me – now leads me to live in a place where I need Him every day in ways I never could have imagined or prepared myself for.

When He calls, He provides all that we need for that call, no matter who we are or where it is we go or what we are called to do.

May the God of all grace be your sufficiency this Easter season and may you know to new heights and greater depths than ever before the grace that is sufficient for you, in every way.

LOVE BEARS ALL THINGS

As I read back over my Mozambique blogs, I realise that I talk like it is easy to live here, as though I roll with the difficulties effortlessly and that it is all one big adventure. Perhaps I have misled you into thinking that I am on top of it all, that as I seek to keep my attitude right and my mind focused and positive, I can handle anything. Possibly I have given the wrong impression by allowing you to think that this amazing adventure is an easy journey to negotiate and that I am a successful negotiator of its many twists and turns.

Please trust me when I say that I have not intentionally misled.

As I read, I realise that I have not been entirely honest. The positive thinker in me, the faith-filled believer in the God who is always good, has determined to believe all things, hope all things, endure all things... [1Cor13:6] Preceding those verses, though, is a challenge to love, and this is where the adventurer in me gets a little shaky.

It is true that I have decided to live my life with eternity beating loudly in my heart, so that every decision I make in each day is informed by this. How grand that sounds! How godly and shiny and unflappable I must be to live this way each day. How very glossy life is when expressed in terms that resound throughout eternity!

Did I mention the six toilets I scrubbed one Saturday morning not long ago? I would like to say that eternity was resounding strongly in my heart as I did it. I would like to say that I prayed over each of those toilets, so that every person who found themselves in a sparkling cubicle that afternoon would sense the eternal weight of their calling as they benefitted from my hard labour.

I wish. It was a stinky, sweaty, messy job and my attitude stunk to match.

I would like to say that moving house is a breeze – I have lived in a different place on average every three months in my time here in Mozambique. But I recognise now that moving throws my soul off balance every time and, just when I am beginning to find my balance again, I move again. Often it is my new housemates who suffer as I take time to gain my equilibrium in a new place.

I pray for a home, a real home where I can settle for awhile, but that is unlikely.

Faith says to believe but sometimes I find it hard. There, I said it.

I would like to say that I negotiate community living well, with grace, patience and selflessness. This I call my “Attitude Wars” where, each day, there are incoming bullets that need to be dodged. The bullets are not shot purposely and often shot without the shooter even realising the gun was loaded. I confess that sometimes I am the shooter and, occasionally and to my utter shame, it is totally premeditated. My attitude wars, when I am on the defensive, lead my actions and, when my attitude stinks, my actions - my words and expressions and body language especially – follow.

I am not good at living selflessly, at putting others’ needs before my own and sacrificing for those with whom I share this wonderful, difficult, crazy environment. Ironically, the more people around me, the lonelier I feel and I wonder how this is possible.

The big picture is that I have sold all and moved to one of the poorest nations on earth to serve. I have been told I am brave and selfless and I have been tempted to believe it all. But those attitude wars keep my feet firmly on the ground. God is concerned as much with the macro-focus of how I love as He is with the big picture.

When I get to Heaven, He will not ask, “Did you sell all you have?... Did you have the faith to go?... Did you speak My word?... “

He will ask one thing and one thing only: “Did you love?”

It has become easy now for me to stop in the middle of a busy day for the toddler in the sand wanting my attention. I like now to give my “down time” on a Sunday to pray with the old vovos sitting outside church waiting for lunch. I look forward now to going to the Tuesday prayer meeting where I will be the only woman and the only non-Portuguese speaker. When I can call it “Ministry”, it happens now without too much internal fuss. But when it is “life” happening amongst the brothers and sisters with whom I live each day, it is different and it should not be.

I am called to love, no matter who is standing in front of me. I have written before about stopping for the one. Why is “the one” out in the sand, crying for a hug, easier to stop for than the one in my own home? Where did I learn that Big-M “Ministry” starts when I step out the front door each day? What about the small-m ministry that begins over coffee in the morning?

I live in community with many others from all walks of life and from all parts of the world. It will not ever be easy and I think that is just how God wants it. We are “grace-growers” for one another. If I can win my attitude wars here in my own home then, surely, I have more chance of winning the war beyond my front door as I walk out to face each day.

“Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful... Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”

COUNTING BLESSINGS

It is Friday morning, 4.45am. I wake to the gentle scraping of sand being raked into neat submission as one of the younger boys begins his daily chore near my window. He does not have to work at 4.45am but I guess he is a very early riser. Not owning a watch, he gets out of bed when he wakes, gathers his equipment and walks alone across the sand in the pre-dawn stillness.

At this time of year it is not yet cool in the early morning but bearably warm. As he works, he waits for the sun to light up the ordered rows of rake-marks that will be scuffed away in just an hour or two. 300 pairs of feet do a lot of scuffing in the sand.

This is the most peaceful time of the day here at Zimpeto, before all those feet carry their sleepy owners out of their dorms and onto the playground, hungrily awaiting their breakfast of bread and tea in the refertorio. It is at this time of day that faith rises in me, everything looks clearer and I know that anything is possible. The stresses of yesterday were laid to rest before sleep last night and today’s busyness has not yet stirred me into action. The knocking at the door will begin at 6.00 with the younger boys wanting balls pumped up and bandaids for their grazes. So I figure I have about an hour to sip my coffee, get quiet on the inside and listen – just listen.

Around here, listening to the still small voice within is hard to do because there is always noise. I live with 300 kids so of course there is always noise, except when they are eating or when they’re asleep. You know that dinnertime hush that falls on a family as they dig in to their meal together after a long, active day? Here, at 7am and at 12 and again at 5pm, I physically feel the hush descend for just a few minutes and my whole body sighs from the inside out.

First comes the siren, the loud, intrusive and very successful means of getting 300 kids to the table at once. Then some yelling or singing, clapping and all those voices yelling “Ahhh-men” in unison.

And then... nothing. No sound at all. Silence. Breathe out. Be still. Get quiet on the inside and listen. And rest for just a moment as the hush settles like a thick, cool fog that you hope will last forever.

The fog only lasts for 15 minutes though and then it is gone, blown away by the whirlwind of 600 feet and 300 voices and the babies in the sand and the boys on the slide and the band practising with the sound turned up high and the banging at the door as Aurelio brings his ball full of holes back to be pumped up for the third time today. Sigh, focus, get to work.

All the children go into their dorms at 9pm when silence descends once again but, by that time, I am just-about ready for bed myself. Refer above to the raking under the window at 4.45am.

So my quiet time, my thinking time, my praying and processing and just-being-still time has to be early. It is my favourite time of the day. It is my time to ponder the big questions of life as well as the little soul-issues scratching at my heart until I dig a bit deeper and find resolution. If not resolution, then I settle for acceptance, for peace with the status quo for today. Perhaps tomorrow morning, in the stillness of the dark pre-dawn hours, I will come to resolution. How good it is to know that there is tomorrow, and tomorrow and tomorrow.

This is why the gentle sound of sand being raked before dawn each day is not a disturbance but a gift I look forward to as I fall asleep at night. I sometimes wonder who it is giving me such a gift and if I could ever explain in a way that he would understand. I am so thankful that, every morning, he crawls out of bed in the darkness, finds his rake as he rubs the sleep from his eyes and goes to work on the sand under my window.

Who would have thought that a little boy tidying the sand before dawn would change me every day. So, thank you to my little friend for a gift you do not know you are giving and for which you ask nothing in return. It is a free gift indeed.

Catch you tomorrow, same time, same place.

Dino - Child of Zimpeto, Son of God

Dino. Three years old. A giggler. A smiler. A cuddler. A child of Zimpeto and a son of God. Desperately underweight and malnourished when he was brought to the Centre two years ago, Dino thrived on the care and attention he received. He grew gradually into a chubby, happy, good-humoured boy known as “Mr Dino” because he seemed old and thoughtful beyond his years.

Everybody fell in love with Dino. He was one minute hilarious and laughing without a care in the world, the next pondering and serious as though he were weighing the world’s problems and deciding what he could do about them. Mr Dino had a plan.

Two weeks ago, Dino died. After months of undiagnosed infections with high temperatures, Dino was admitted to the hospital where he stayed for a night. The next morning, in respiratory failure, his little body had no more fight left in it and he left us.

The last time I saw Dino, it was just a few weeks ago - a day or two before I flew out to visit Australia. He spotted me as I was walking across the hot sand. I was in a rush as usual to see someone about something so seemingly important then but now, from this view, utterly unimportant. I saw a little round body stand up in the distance, brush the dirt from his hands and begin to move towards me. I paused, mentally calculating the time it would take to get all the jobs ticked off my list so I could try to find a respite from the oppressive afternoon heat.

Dino was overweight – a miracle really after the physical trials of his first year of life – and still not the healthiest of children, HIV positive with various issues not yet clearly diagnosed. He shuffled towards me, arms out wide and his little feet stirring up a cloud of dust as he dragged them through the hot, hot sand. He looked unsure. Perhaps I had walked past, too busy, just one too many times for him to trust that I would stop for him this time.

As the thought registered, it pierced my heart. This babe, this precious child who had lost everything important in the world before his first birthday, was turning to me now with arms open wide. I stopped. I grinned. I crouched, bent low and spread my arms out wide.

Dino squealed. His face lit up. He laughed – one of those from-the-belly bubbling-over laughs so pure and free and joyous that I laughed with him. He shuffled faster, arms pumping at his sides. I thought he would topple forward, his feet not moving as fast as the rest of his body. But he knew what he was doing, his timing was perfect. Dino had a plan. Just as he reached me, his momentum lifted him off his feet as he fell towards me, giggling, reaching. Trusting.

As his arms encircled my neck, I picked him up and lifted him to me. I held him tightly and we swung together in a circle, stirring up more dirt that billowed and wafted, sticking to our damp skin. We turned and we turned and we turned, laughing and puffing and clinging tightly to one other. Ah the purest of joys!

Dino’s place on this earth can never be filled by another. He is irreplaceable in the hearts of those who had the privilege of loving him for a short season. In Heaven there was a place prepared for him and ready for his arrival and now, after three years of pain and grief and sickness and love and joy and laughter, He is home.

Our kids do not belong to us. We have no ownership, no rights. We do, though, have an awesome responsibility to nurture them as best we can, filling them to the brim with all the love we can muster for as long as they are entrusted to our care. It is impossible to know how long that will be so every second and every smile and hug and touch count in ways that go deeper than we can know.

My heart aches to see Dino again. I think of Paulo and Tino, Irene and Thabo, and all the children we have known and lost. It is not fair. It is not right. The world is out of balance when children can starve to death or die of diseases inherited through no doing of their own.

It is not right that children suffer. The “problem” – and even to name it “a problem” minimises its enormity and the injustice of it all - is huge and I feel so very, very small in comparison. Asking “Why?” brings an overwhelming sense of helplessness which leads me to numbing inaction in the face of such a huge question. So instead I ask, “What now? What next?”

I and the workers of Zimpeto had the privilege of loving a precious boy for much of his too-short life. Dino was loved and he was happy. Now he is no longer sick and he cannot be rejected or harmed anymore. He is in the safest place of all, in the arms of the Father who knows him better than we ever could.

Now, all I know to do is go back to that place of miracles where most of our children are loved into full and active lives and where, sometimes, they are loved into the arms of Jesus.

Dino. Son of God and a child of Zimpeto. He was with us not nearly long enough and now is in the arms of the Father who loves him perfectly. May we learn how to do the same with those of His children that He asks us to love here on earth.

Dino, on the left, with his buddy Francisco.

A BRIDGE BETWEEN WORLDS

The question I am asked more than any other is, “What do you do in Mozambique?”

My four-year-old niece prayed for me during my last visit home, “God, please help Wennie to look after the babies in Africa.” It is a fair assumption that I “look after the babies”, considering that I live in the midst of a 300-child centre and I do talk a lot about them to anyone who will listen. I spend time with the children of Zimpeto but that is not my official role – for me, being with the children is refreshment at the end of a long day or on a quiet weekend.

My main role is to look after the visitors who come to spend time with our kids and to experience the many ministry opportunities here. We receive more than 1000 visitors each year from all over the world. They play soccer, do craft, teach guitar, talk to, pray with and love on the children. For their two or three week stay, visitors pour into our kids the kind of focused attention that most of the resident missionaries, as much as we would like to, generally cannot.

My life in Mozambique began as a visitor to Zimpeto. Then when I moved here to live, it took me a day to travel but, in hindsight, a lifetime of preparation to get here.

I had spent much of my life turning away from the suffering of the poor, avoiding the horrendous statistics about child poverty and infant mortality, refusing to acknowledge how very rich I really was. Whenever a child sponsorship ad came on TV… cue soft music, zoom in on an emaciated little body, “For $30 a month, you can change Arsenia’s life forever…” I was one of those who could not watch.

I would shut my eyes tightly, reach for the remote and press any button I could find just to change the channel and avoid looking upon such agony. Then one day I stopped avoiding and began to look - to really look. I remember the moment. I made a conscious decision to see what my heart refused to acknowledge until that point. Denial was no longer an option. My own sense of helplessness could no longer excuse me from avoiding the truth. So I whispered, almost hoping my prayer would not be heard, “What can I do?”

In that moment, I stepped beyond helplessness and into a world of possibilities. It did not occur to me that I could make even the slightest difference. The problem was too big and I was way too small and inconsequential. Never did I think…

I was a visitor to Zimpeto for three weeks in 2006 and nothing has been the same for me since. I visited because I wanted to see. I wanted to feel. I no longer wanted to numb myself to the pain that others in the world were suffering. I wanted to confront my own sense of helplessness in the face of such pain and inquire of God, “What can I do? As tiny as I am, what can I do? You’re big, I’m not. You’re the God of the exceeding abundantly more than I can ask or imagine. So what can You do through me?”

Now I live in Mozambique. It was never part of the plan and I am still surprised that I am here. I laugh as I think of it! God has truly done “exceeding abundantly more…” and I am daily amazed.

Now I have the privilege of walking others through their oftentimes first visit to Mozambique and to Africa. I am one of a team that is building a bridge between worlds, walking brave souls back and forth as they negotiate this narrow way. I am very aware with each day that comes and each visitor I meet that it is impossible to step into this particular world, even briefly, without being changed deeply and forever.

The change works both ways.

The poor have no voice. They have no forum in which they can speak and be heard. The orphan, the widow, the sick and the outcast - they have no way to proclaim their needs in a form that will be heard by the rest of the world. They do not have the resources to change their circumstances or their future, no way to get their message through to a world that communicates via email and skype, cable television and Oprah. Their silence condemns them to unending powerlessness.

Perhaps, by welcoming visitors to this ministry, we can provide one small forum in which the poor can speak. 1000 visitors who pass through our gates each year hear the voices calling to them from the garbage dump, the hospital and the jail. They hear the stories of our children - the many, many stories of illness and abuse, of starvation and rejection. They stop long enough to listen and to learn.

Our visitors go into the community to pray for the sick and distribute food to the hungry. They cuddle the tiny malnourished babies in the nursery and visit the widows’ home while the old vovos – the Mozambican grandmas - tend their newly-planted vegetable garden. They watch the young mothers bring their newborns to the clinic for milk and they chat with the many lined up waiting for medical attention. They drive through the city and weep for the blind beggar tapping at the vehicle’s windows, palms turned upward and eyes cloudy and dull. They look away, deeply disturbed by the sight of the young woman dragging herself roughly across the busy road on her hands and knees, somehow waving two lanes of traffic to a halt as she crawls over the hot, potholed roadway.

When you come and you listen - and you hear - you empower the poor. By listening, you give them a voice with which they can share their needs. Then you take their message back with you. You go home and you pray. You stir others to pray, or to come, or to speak up, or to raise the finances so desperately needed here.

Through the visitors who come to Zimpeto, the voice of the poor resonates around the world.

I do not take care of orphans as part of my role here. I do not play with them each day or feed them or tuck them into bed at night. My role is to facilitate others to come and to see, and then to go home with a good report, bearing witness to the hand of God working for a nation in need.

I work as part of a team that brings worlds together, in the hope that one can support the other in ways that will change both forever.

For more information about visiting Zimpeto Children’s Centre, email zimpetohospitality@irismin.org

ASK WHERE THE GOOD WAY IS

[A brief look back to a busy, busy day in July...]


Yesterday the world was spinning faster than I had experienced for a long time. I am learning to say “despera por favor” with a smile. “Please wait…”

Needs to be met. Issues to be faced. Problems to be solved. Questions to which I must respond… now! Phones to be answered, again and again and again. There are days when I juggle three phones at once. I have learned to hold two conversations at the same time; after all, I have two ears and two hands.

Yesterday there were plans to be finalised, messages to be delivered, money to be sorted, accommodation to be organised, directions to be given, vehicles to be coordinated, transport to the airport for 37 people all at once… hugs, thanks, goodbyes… oh no, I forgot to find the lost suitcase! As the day progressed and the world turned faster and faster, my head began to spin with it. I wondered how to do everything that needed to be done without dropping the ball, my bundle or the many papers I was carrying around to reassure me that I was on top of everything.

I headed for the Baby House to deliver a message. The plan was to be in and out in a moment. No time for distractions or play or loving on babies today.

Within seconds, I’d delivered my message but Lourenco had spotted me. I began to back out the door. He ran towards me, gathering momentum even as his feet tripped over each other. He leaned forward precariously as I began to turn away, his arms wide and face beaming even as I thought, “I don’t have time for you today.” As he reached me, he fell into my arms and I I instinctively swung him into the air. Somehow my day was hijacked by the smile of a precious babe.

To think, I almost missed it.

As I held him, he placed one tiny hand on each of my shoulders and turned his head, leaning his cheek firmly against mine. I felt his little body relax as he leaned against me. His breathing began to slow and deepen.

My day’s agenda faded as I held him close. I began to sing quietly to him, “Yes, Jesus loves you…” as his arms loosened and his hands dropped from my shoulders. The echoing noise of thirty children playing within the concrete walls of the Baby House faded as I focused on this one beautiful boy wanting a few moments of my attention.

Lourenco has no mother to rock him to sleep at night, no father to swing him high in the air and catch him as he squeals with delight. He has spent the first two years of his life without a family to remind him that he is loved and he is special and that there is hope for him to be all that he wants to be in his life.

Yesterday, for a few moments he had me. It is not enough but it is something. Somehow my heart was hijacked, just for awhile, by a toddler innocent enough despite his losses to still believe that a hug is enough. He stirred an instinct in me so viscerally powerful that it took my breath away. To hold an orphan seeking love is worship of the highest order.

And so I surrendered, my heart taken captive by the guileless trust of a child. He knew that, as he ran and toppled in my direction, my arms would catch him and lift him high. This babe who has no earthly reason to trust, trusted me. It is why we are here: to catch them before they fall and lift them as high as we possibly can, holding them there until they can soar on their own.

For a few moments yesterday, the world stopped spinning, my heart stopped racing and rest took me over. I breathed out the busyness of the day as I sang over him. He was being filled and refreshed by love, even as his tiny body relaxing in my arms was refreshing me.

I swayed gently and continued to sing as he leaned his head back and his eyes gazed at my lips singing life over him. My back found the wall and I slowly slipped down and onto the cool concrete floor, babe in arms. His eyes drooped and closed and he fell asleep. All the riotous noise of thirty children faded into the background as I gazed at his sleeping face and thanked God for reminding me why I am here – to stop for the one.

“The one” in this moment was a toddler needing a cuddle. Perhaps the one tomorrow will be a Mozambican tia needing a smile or a staff member a word of encouragement for all the work he does. Perhaps it is, as today, one of the 60 or so visitors wandering the Centre, their hearts being stirred for a harvest field so ripe that they can smell the richness of the crop as they walk through the sand, praying and laughing and loving on our children.

Today, Lourenco’s soul needed refueling, as did mine. He reminded me to slow down, to breathe, and to stop for awhile. As he slept in my arms, I poured love into him with my touch and my words and my prayers. I quietly thanked God for these moments, for using the outstretched arms of a toddler to draw me aside from the busyness of my day, reminding me that He leads me beside still waters and He restores my soul. I could so easily have missed it. Even on the busiest of days, He is my Restorer - and Lourenco’s.

Half an hour later and the world was no longer spinning, my heart no longer racing and my head now thinking more clearly about the next steps to take in this day full of challenges. I whispered my thanks to this little boy for giving me more than I could possibly give back to him. I handed him carefully to a tia and slipped away, walking more gently now, back into a day filled with opportunities to serve, one person at a time, with a smile.

“…ask where the good way is and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls.” Jer 6:16