(If you know the name of the person I refer to below as T., please for safety reasons, do not mention the name in any Facebook responses or comments to this blog.)
That’s what the subject line
read on the email from our friend T. in Asia.
Oh, no, I thought. For some
time, the government of the country where she lives had cut off her access to
foreign funds making her ability to take care of the sixteen orphans in her
care challenging. Much of her support comes from the US.
When I clicked on the email, I found the situation to be even direr. In
only a few weeks, T. has to leave the country to renew her visa, a process she
has gone through for the past nineteen years. Repeatedly over the past year,
missionary friends of hers have been denied access back into the country and
are forced to buy plane tickets on the spot to return to the US. Only two weeks
ago, this happened.
She has the same kind of visa, and without divine intervention, she may
face the same consequences.
She would leave behind her life’s work. In addition to the sixteen
children she mothers now, there are over two dozen more she has raised, which
are young adults or in college.
Her youngest child is HIV positive and lives with T. in her apartment.
She came to T. when she was only weeks old, and T. is the only mother she has
ever known.
These were children abandoned, with nowhere to turn, but God gave them
a hope and a future when they came under T.’s care.
Folks, money can’t help now. The only thing that will help is prayer,
and I’m asking you to pray as I am, morning, noon, and night. I wake up with
this situation and I go to bed with it. The verse I am praying is from Proverbs
21:1, “In the Lord’s hand the king’s heart is a stream of water that he
channels toward all who please him” (The Message).
Pray God would turn the King’s heart like water, and that a door would
be opened up for T. to continue her work in Asia. Yes, she has a team of people
in place to continue caring for these children, but she is their mother. If you
have children, imagine having to leave them, not knowing when or if you would
ever be able to see them again. Pray like that. Pray with that urgency.
Friends, thank you. I’ll keep you updated.
(Edited on August 30, our friend T made it through customs early this morning our time and is now back with her sixteen children. We are so thankful to God for this miracle.)
(Edited on August 30, our friend T made it through customs early this morning our time and is now back with her sixteen children. We are so thankful to God for this miracle.)