God Sees

Almost four weeks ago a tiny premie baby girl was brought into our hospital on the brink of death.  She was born at 32 weeks and a neighbour brought her in because her mother had abandoned her.  When she arrived, she was in terrible shape.  One of our doctors, Elizabeth along with her medical team, worked very hard to save this little life.   God saw this baby girl.  And she is alive and well today.

Sleepy little angel.

This is our baby girl. She has no parents.  She has no home. She lives in a bassinet at the nurses station in our hospital and a variety of people, both medical staff and people like me, take turns feeding, holding and loving this little one.

After the first week in the hospital, one of our nurses decided it was time to give this baby a name.  So she named her Leah, which means "God sees me."  After hearing that Leah was her first name, I decided she needed a middle name!  Elizabeth was the obvious choice.  Not only is it the name of the doctor who worked so hard to save her, it also means "chosen by God."  What a perfect combination of names for this little one - (and by little, I mean about 1.5 kg.)   God saw her and chose her to come to our hospital, to be worked on by our medical staff, to be loved on and to be prayed for by so many people.  Little Leah.  

Now she is almost a month old.  She is growing and doing very well.  There is often someone holding her when I go up to visit her in the hospital.  Some others and I have had the joy of doing Kangaroo Care with her.

Kangaroo Care puts her to sleep in seconds.

A few years ago, the hospital had another baby girl in need of a family.  Her mother had died and she was in the care of a missionary couple here.  God provided a wonderful Togolese Christian family from another city to adopt her.  I was able to contact this same family to find out if they would be interested in adopting another baby girl.  They wrote back immediately to say that they would definitely consider it but wanted to talk to their pastor and pray about it. 

A few days later, they let us know that while they were very interested in taking her, there was also another family in their church who would love the opportunity to adopt.  So now we have two potential families that want to adopt Leah!  In fact, this Sunday we should hear which family is going to proceed with adoption.  Please, please pray that the family of God's choosing would fall in love with Leah and become her forever family, that she would be a blessing to them and they would be a blessing to her.  And also that her little life, which God saw from the moment she was conceived, would have a big impact for the Lord as she grows up knowing who He is and how He saved her - twice. 

Right now, Leah is taking only a portion of her formula by mouth and the rest has to be pushed into an NG tube.  Please be praying that she continues to be able to take increased amounts of her formula by mouth and less and less is required through the tube.  Once she can take 100% by mouth, she is free to leave the hospital and go HOME!!  

Even Jack gets to try feeding her!

Not every story that comes out of our hospital has a happy ending.  In fact, a big chunk of them don't.  But we're so thankful for stories like this one - stories that share hope, joy and love. Stories that impact little lives and big ones (like mine!).  Stories of our God who loves, who cares, and who sees.