Resistance

Just last week I shared with wise counsel that I didn't think I would be returning to China anytime soon. Just.Last.Week. As in four days ago. I reasoned that airfare was so ridiculously high. That it would be a feat to take four children, two of whom are transfused regularly, back as a single parent to do orphanage work. With my counsel, I struggled to process why this was happening, as returning to give back through orphanage trainings has always been so right. It is a small part of what I can do to help orphans. The orphanages are desperate for trainings. They are overfull with children with a variety of special needs. My wise counsel explained that perhaps that my season of orphanage work was to get me to where I am today. A building block, of some sort, to get me to a "tentmaker position" (her words), where I am doing His work for the four little girls who were given to me. She said, perhaps, the work of that season is finished.

God has a huge sense of humor.

A few months ago, my meimei, a young woman God gifted to me as a younger sister living in China, lost her only child to a drowning accident. I wrestled with the senselessness of a life lost at age four. I wrestled with the helplessness of being so far away. I desperately wanted to comfort meimei. I wanted to be there to mourn with her. The best I could do was to mourn with her by phone, with the help of a friend who could translate for us. I begged her to consider coming to stay with us in the United States, as crazy as that would be. Since I couldn't get to Guangxi, I thought, she could come here. It is something I have continued to pray for.

Saturday night we spent time with some dear friends who spoke about their journey in life. How they thought they would be in one place, only to find themselves in a different spot. My friend spoke of the "resistance" we encounter when something is our will, but not God's will. I thought of the resistance I have been encountering as I looked at those flight prices to get back to China. Flight prices for next summer. For December. For February. Each time I looked, those prices were beyond high. Resistance.

And then, yesterday morning, I got an email from a friend living in Taiwan. She is one of meimei's closest friends. She said she would go back to the Mainland in November, and asked if I would consider going. I chuckled to myself thinking about those high flight prices. But I decided to look anyways. I quickly found the prices are half of what they have been. HALF. I shrieked. What was going on? Where was the resistance? I then quickly emailed my partner in Guangxi since together we do the orphanage trainings. I asked her if she thought we could work together in November. Her words "please come. The orphanages have been asking when you will come back". The resistance is gone, and it is clear where I need to be in November.

This is not what I was expecting at all. I have one child without a US passport, after being adopted only a year ago. Another child has an expired passport. We will need to get those passports, and all of our visas. We will need to arrange with the schools to bring work. There are supplies that the children in the orphanages and foster homes could benefit from. There is a transfusion schedule to plan around. There is my prayer that others from the US will be able to come to help. There is a powerpoint presentation to develop, which must be translated into Chinese. However, I am confident it will all fall into place. We are clearly meant to be back in Guangxi come November.

I know this all sounds crazy, that a single mother of four daughters would take them all back for a short term mission trip. The logical thoughts of "is it right to take them out of school, especially for the one who struggles so much with learning" and "wouldn't it be better to just travel yourself". But I know, in every fiber of my soul, that God is doing something in the lives of my daughters as they work alongside me in *their* orphanages. There is healing. There is compassion. There is the understanding that there is more to life than just themselves. And there are benefits for them beyond that which I can ever even see.

God is good. And funny. And merciful. He has opened that door without resistance. And now we plan to walk through.