Jehiah Susan

I'm sure that some might wonder what the whole "Alive By His Mercy" is all about...

On January 18th 2006, God performed a miracle. Late on the warm night in Uganda, a story unfolded that's not so strange to culture and customs in that small country in East Africa. Yet this one particular night, and all so familiar story would change the course of so many lives. And even though I was on the other side of the world, finishing up my last semester of high school, I would later find out that somewhere across the globe, God was preparing something amazing...

A mother was just about to give birth to a baby. Though only she and God know the circumstances, it is only safe to assume that this mother was young & had been raped. This is a common case in Uganda, and the saddest part about it is not only that the woman becomes pregnant, but that she is usually also left with a death sentence on her life; AIDS. So instead of this baby being a blessing, this tiny miracle of God was a burden. A burden this mother had no intention on trying to make the best of. But what else could she do? She herself wasn't going to survive, the #1 killer of people in her country was already overtaking her body...

So late that night, the mother gave birth. A beautiful baby girl entered this world with no chance of survival. With no one to protect her, no one to speak for her, this baby girl was helpless. Her only hope was her mother, but instead the mother looked at this baby with disgust and did the unthinkable. With a razor in hand, the mother took her child, slashing her small throat twice then stabbing her in the arm. "Surely this baby will no longer be a burden to me," the mother thought at she threw her baby into deep waters of the closest swamp that would surely consume the small helpless creature assuring her of never being a part of that woman's life ever again. But the baby landed in the shallowest part of the swamp, crying out for something. She knew nothing about love yet, she knew nothing about grace, nothing about mercy, yet she cried. But cried for what? This is how I know God is real. Even though this baby knew no love or affection, she cried. She cried because God's love is with us from the moment we are put on earth, even before we are even created, God loves us. This baby already knew love because God FIRST loved her...

As this tiny being cried out, bloody, muddy and helpless, an old man happened to walk by on that late night. He picked up the filthy baby, covered in not only the blood of birth, but her own new blood & knew he had to do something. He took the small child to the closest police station and dropped her off. But for this man even do that, which would seem so practical here, is amazing. In a country where AIDS is nobodies friend, blood is every ones worst enemy. So God moved through this man, carrying a child covered in blood to do only what God would have done. Officer Susan was on duty that night at the police station and quickly took the baby from his arms. She bathed her, fed her, dressed her wounds & took care of this child as if she was her own. She took the baby to the hospital in hopes that something could be done. As with every case, an HIV test was administered to the tiny baby. It came back positive. Officer Susan knew this baby wouldn't last for the night, so all she could do was pray...

The next morning, Deidrah at Answering for the Children Children's home in Jinja was called. Officer Susan explained the situation and asked if there was anything Deidrah could do to help this small child who miraculously lasted through the night. She was brought to the home that day and now, 4 1/2 years later, that baby is still there. Her name is Jehiah, which means "Alive By The Mercy of God." There would be no better name to suit her. Though Deidrah prepared herself for the worst, Jehiah held strong and fought back.

Not even 2 years later our lives collided. I had taken the semester off after my freshman year of college to find what exactly it was God wanted me to be doing with my life. His sense of humor is crazy sometimes because of giving me normal signs like most people, He sent me to Africa. Uganda to be exact. If you don't know anything about Uganda, Google it. It's not considered the happiest place in the world. (Invisible Children) But somehow I ended up there, in the same small orphanage that little baby girl found herself in. And it was there that a part of me was healed. A certain hole in my heart was sealed that had been torn open just over a year before...

Jehiah, 2013

Clean

(This was written while I was in Russia with a dear friend Christine Carr. Christine is the founder of Operation 127, ministering to orphans in Russia and coordinating exchange-type programs to get Russian children adopted! The Carr Family is a second family to me, and some of my closest friends. They have three beautiful Russian/American princesses. Tatiana was the third to be adopted and I was blessed and honored to travel with Christine to bring this beautiful girl home to her forever family.)

Tatiana and I have become fast friends! Though she will not speak much, somehow we are able to fill the days with laughter. I'll have to admit, Russian Nickolodeon does help break the ice a bit! Her 10 year old heart is teaching me so much. Her story is amazing. And without words, she has told me details of her life that she would probably never be brave enough to tell otherwise.
I fell asleep with tears rolling down my cheeks last night. With Tatiana in the pull out sofa bed on the otherside of the room, she was oblivious to it all. See, she is being brought into a completely different world traveling with her mother and I, even though we are still in her home country. The places she's getting to go, the food she's eating, and even the television are all new, exciting and sometimes scary things. I pray all day long that the Lord will show me how to show her love in ways she's never know. I pray that her nerves are calm and she feels at home already.
It was Tatiana's first night with us. We visited her at the orphanage yesterday, but today was the day she would spend all her time in preperation for her big trip to America. Her mom brought her a suitcase full of new, brightly colored clothes that Tatiana could not wait to put on. Since it was getting close to bedtime, Christine asked if I would help Tatiana with the shower and give her her new pajamas while she finished up paperwork for court tomorrow. Of course I said yes.
The beautiful bathroom in the hotel where we are staying has a grand walk in shower. The kind with no doors and beautiful stone covers the walls and floor. I showed Tatiana how to turn it on helping her find the right temperature. Her eyes were heavy with amazment at seeing nothing quite like this before. She stripped of her worn, dingy, orphanage clothes and folded them neatly. I had noticed the smell of those things all day long, but tried not to make their stench obvious. She sat them closely to the shower and hopped in. I started to instruct her of all the bottles that were sitting in the shower and which soap is used for what. I use many hand gestures these days to get my point across and anyone else would have laughed histerically if they walked in seeing me immitating washing my hair and body. There aren't many monkeys in this part of the world, but I'm sure I resembled one that evening. Of course Tatiana thought it was great.
As I started to step away, thinking she could handle it from here, movement caught my eye. I watched her frail body pick up her dirty underwear. Their dingy color showed years of wear and had probably been passed down to many many girls in the orphanage. Before even rinsing off her own body she picked up a bar of soap and started scrubbing the gray stringy fabric. "You don't...!" I said and stopped. She looked at me both startled and puzzled. A look of fear crept over her face. I tried to just smile and take them from her, hoping that would get the message across. I sat them in the sink since they were now a soaked mess. I started to walk out of the bathroom thinking she understood and wanting to give her privacy. I saw her swiftly run across the bathroom, pick the underwear out of the sink and go right back to scrubbing them in the shower. My heart broke. I realized that Tatiana, to this day, has probably only owned one pair of underwear. The only time this one pair was and could be washed was when she was completely naked in the shower and she had to do it herself. I walked out of the bathroom and shut the door behind me, afraid of embarrassing her any more. I went over to her bed where her mother had laid out a new pair of pink and green pajamas and a crisp white pair of panties. I picked up the entire ensemble and headed back to the bathroom. By that time, Tatiana had finished with the underwear and was frantically working on cleaning the outfit she had worn all day. I didn't stop her, instead just said, "Look Tatiana, for when you are finished." I sat them on the counter and left the bathroom. I heard the wet clothes hit the shower floor with a plop and finally the smell of shampoo filled the warm air. She came out just a few minutes later clean and wearing her new clothes for bed. A permanent grin fixed on her face that I knew was going to stay there until she fell asleep. I went to get a brush out of the bathroom as she sat on the bed and turned the Russian cartoons back on. I found all of her wet clothes in the sink, still half soapy. I rung them out and put them in trash can, that smell would have never come out no matter how much scrubbing was done. I grabbed the brush and sat behind her, brushing her hair as she giggled at the TV.
Every day we are offered a new identity through the love and grace of Jesus Christ. Yet some of us just keep unsuccessfully scrubbing and rewearing the same dingy clothes. He has offered us beautiful garments, a new life. The joy He brings radiates and enchants those around us, just like lavender scented shampoo. Lord, thank you for my new friend in Russia. Thank you for letting her be a part of my life. And thank you for showing me your love in the most practical of ways. I love being clean.

Day 1 of the Future...

I don't know exactly why I've decided to create my own blog. I've always thought of bloggers as arrogant fools who just had to make sure the world knew every idea and idiotic thought that came to them, thinking that if they blogged about it they might just change the world... but then I found out that Laura and Jordan had blogs and decided that it must be pretty cool! Haha!!

But I find myself daily reflecting on things around me. So I figure that by blogging, I can let those emotions out, actually tell someone, and instead of getting the irritating sigh from a friend when I try to fill the conversations with my philosophies on life. That person can always choose to leave my page. Maybe, somehow, something I say will have an impact on someones life just when they needed it. Or maybe I can be the joy in someones day when they find out that there is another person in the world that is just as foolish as they are if not even more.

My life is in the craziest place it's ever been right now and I feel that this is a good idea. To be able to let emotions out and be able to look back on them in the future. We'll see what happens.

But here we go... I'm really doing this.