More Tears of Joy and Loving Drool

Let me start by praising God because He is so cool and altogether wonderful. I'm still in India, it's still hot, ankles are still scandalous, and I still love it. This is without a doubt one of the sweetest times I've ever spent with God, one of the favorite times in my life. Thank You, Jesus, for Your overwhelming company and smile.

Over the past two weeks, our team has finished the adoption application papers for all of the children here! How Kingdom come is that? A couple of children already have some families looking at them, which brings my heart to smile and sing. He is a faithful Father.

Since finishing the papers, our team has gone from knowing the files and stories of the kids, to actually getting to know them. This past week, we went to Victory Home, which is the main home for the majority of the special needs children here at Sarah's Covenant Homes. One of the volunteers at the home led us through each room and told us a little about each child, letting us listen to the Spirit about which child we should work with one-on-one over the next few weeks. Understand that none of these kids really have anyone to love on them consistently. There are so many kids, it is rare that there are enough volunteers to actually sit and take time with them. They don't have mommies to love them, daddies to read them stories. These kids have no one to make them feel special and loved genuinely.

As you may expect, walking through these rooms trying to choose one child to love on was incredibly hard. I truly love them all so much, they all broke my heart. But when I walked into the second large room, I felt the Spirit call me to a small girl in the corner laying so still you could easily mistake her for a baby doll. The volunteer leading us didn't say anything about the girl, focusing on the boys in the middle first, but I knew she was mine. I went to sit by the girl (we'll call her Shanti for security reasons), her arms and legs sprawled out. She didn't move as I sat, or as I stroked her arm. As I placed my fingers on her cheeks she blinked and shook her head a bit to the side. 

The volunteer leader saw me with Shanti, and encouraged me to stay with her and work on her physical therapy for CP. Shanti has an extensive case of cerebral palsy, which is a non-progressive brain injury occurring between the ages of 0-2. Usually, this leads to a lack of muscle formation and limits brain activity. In this way, Shanti cannot hold up her own head or really control any of her limbs. If you were to prop her up to sit by herself, Shanti essentially folds into herself, and looks a little ball. Her legs are tiny and tight at the knees from lack of movement, arms usually lay straight with fingers outstretched. She is helpless to the restrictions of her body.

I picked up little Shanti and held her in my lap. Slowly her tight joints stretched out in my arms. Bouncing her on my knee, her face didn't move at all. No emotion whatsoever. Her ayah (caretaker) came over and told me in sign language that Shanti cannot see, or at most can only see shadows. She is blind. Looking into her beautiful, dark brown eyes, I asked Jesus what to do.

"Jesus, how can I help this child?"
"Hold her and love her as though you were Me."

For 2 hours I just sat there holding this precious sunflower in my arms. I ran my fingers over the palms of her hands, her arms, her face, her ears, her eyelashes, her knees, her neck, her toes, her cheeks, her eyebrows, her ponytail, her ankles. I whispered to her, "Ninnu nenu premestenanu, chala chala bagundi, yesu prima. I love you, you are very very beautiful, Jesus loves you."

God told me, "Look at her as I look at her. Talk to her as I do."

So I did. In English, I whispered to her what God would say as He held her.

Shanti, everything about you is beautiful and perfect. Your baby hairs, your eyelashes, your knuckle wrinkles, your legs, everything. I will hold you forever, I will never let you go. If I came here for you alone, that is more than enough. You are more than enough for me. You are loved, you are loved, you are loved. And then, for the first time in two hours, Shanti smiled. She smiled. Shanti smiled a big, toothy grin. It was short and fleeting, but it was there. I saw it. I saw her smile. I felt her happiness and love in that moment. I squeezed her tight. And once again, I began to cry tears of joy.

In that moment I held her so closely to me, and looked around the room. Each child had one of us sitting with them, holding them, dancing with them, tickling them, loving them. A song was playing over the speakers about loving the least of these, the same song some special Ed students had performed to at a dance show at school earlier this year. I gazed back down at Shanti, and watched my tears fall on her. Tears which she couldn't see or feel. Two ayahs came over to me asking what was wrong, and all I could say was, "Too much happy, too much happy." They understood, and we all sat there laughing and crying together. We had too much happy.

That moment was so Jesus.

That feeling was only topped when an hour later Shanti smiled again to song playing over the speakers as it sang, "It's always like springtime with You, making all things new. Your light breaking through the dark! This is what You do, You make me come to life!" And then it was topped again at the very end of the day, 6 hours later, when the song played again and Shanti LAUGHED. She LAUGHED!!! She laid in my arms giggling and shaking and smiling. I held her close, and laughed with her, crying more tears of joy. This little girl went from no emotion, to laughing uncontrollably in my arms. Shanti grabbed my finger and I kissed her face, and we laughed together.

The next morning we went back to Victory for the day, and after picking Shanti up for five minutes, SHE SMILED AGAIN. And she kept smiling!!!!!! She wrapped her hand around my fingers and sat there smiling. I even got a picture of it, which I showed to everyone and look at close to every five minutes now.

It's amazing what love will do.

I sat there on Shanti's bed with her, knowing my hair was sure to be attacked by lice, and helped her sit up straight. Soon I looked down, and saw her asleep in my arms, nuzzled into me, hand still clinging to my finger. In this moment, it wasn't her hand or smile that made me happy, but the spit she was drooling all over me. Yes, her drool made me happier than nearly everything else combined. Because in that moment, there was nobody else's drool I would have wanted stuck to me but hers. Her drool was all I needed because it was hers, because it meant she was asleep in my arms. Because it meant she was having sweet dreams.

Brothers and sisters, that moment was so Jesus.

Anyways, the three main things I've been taught this week:
1) God wants your drool on His shirt. It makes Him happy.
2) Love makes a difference. Kids need love. They can't smile without it.
3) God transcends things that make no sense. 

Be blessed.
Love one another.
Speak words of joy.
Fall asleep and drool on God's shirt.

(I'll post Shanti's smile picture whenever I have a computer to do so. It's literally the cutest.)