Match | Previous Challenge Entry

how it works

TITLE: Match | Previous Challenge Entry
By Gary Ritter
12/06/14
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The great and glorious truth is that what the enemy purposes for evil, God uses for His good. When Pastor Bob answered God’s call to be a missionary he simply knew that he was surrendering his will to the will of God, that God would use him, and show Bob His glory. Bob could not have anticipated how incredibly this would play out before his very eyes.

The Chinese have a one-child policy and the preference in the country is for boys. Many baby girls are abandoned in tears to orphanages. In the orphanage Bob worked at for a time eighty girls and three boys, disfigured with cleft palettes, awaited for hope mostly in vain. One morning the snarling of a dog outside the front door awakened the staff. Frightened by their sudden appearance the dog looked up, a small piece of flesh in its teeth. It ran off as someone rushed to rescue the baby that had been discarded. Distraught at the hole in the child’s cheek, Bob and a staff member drove the baby girl to the nearby hospital for treatment. The doctors did what they could but the deformity was permanent. Back at the orphanage they named the baby Rose because she was so sweet.

In China the government matches orphans with prospective parents for adoptions. When Rose’s turn came and she was matched, Bob and others worried over her fate. They justifiably feared that when the adoptive parents saw in Rose the damaged goods, they would reject her, leaving her to a lonely and bitter existence.

Word came that an American couple were designated to adopt Rose, and the day came when they arrived to take possession of their new child. As an American, having grown up to the privilege of life in the United States, Bob hesitated to present Rose to the man and woman who waited for the first glimpse of the culmination of their hopes and dreams. What would they think of this poor flawed baby? Bob steeled himself for the rejection and entered the waiting room alongside the nurse who carried Rose.

As soon as the woman saw Rose she bowed her head and began to weep uncontrollably. Bob was embarrassed and tried to apologize that they had no say in the matching process. Before he could speak hardly a word the woman waved him off, holding up her hands, and shaking her head, saying, “No, no, you don’t understand.”

Puzzled, Bob said, “What do you mean?”

“We’re Christians,” the woman said, pointing at her husband beside her and tapping her own chest. “My husband…” and she broke down again, taking several moments to compose herself while wiping away her tears. “My husband is a plastic surgeon at one of the finest hospitals in America. You see, this is a miracle of God. Using the Chinese government God brought us this precious child from six thousand miles away. It was His perfect plan that we would be the ones to adopt this baby.”

Bob left the orphanage shortly after going to the Philippines where he spent most of his missionary career. He never forgot how his Lord orchestrated the possibility for a transformed life for an innocent baby girl.

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