Miracle in the Making

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My four-year-old sits. She sits limply in a hospital bed.

The bandages spun round her head cover surgical incisions from the base of her ear to the top of her head. Tubes and needles are poking in and sticking out of her frame. A diaper sags from her frail body, no pants, no shirt, just a diaper.

She nibbles on a graham cracker, her only source of food in four days. A small piece crumbles into her mouth, and a larger piece tumbles onto the floor. Then, she sips water from a straw to cool her body warmed by fever.

I gaze at her sitting limply. Her body has been opened up to heal her, to fix blood vessels and the brain that holds them. If they don’t fix her, seizures and strokes could consume her. But she’s still here.

I don’t know what will happen next, but I know I'm looking at a miracle. A miracle. A miracle in the making.

She’s weak, but God’s strength is perfected in weakness. The future is uncertain, yet certainly God has not left her. God’s holding her in brokenness, holding her frailty, holding her bandaged wounds.

I gaze at her in the ICU bed, then look back down at my phone. An online meeting pushes on about changes in the PC(USA). A new model for mission has been created. All mission co-worker positions are ending. Everyone in the meeting is discerning their next steps for employment.

There is so much hurt on the screen, so much brokenness. Folks are cut deep. Raw, bare emotions surface.

My mission co-worker friends served internationally, connected domestically, and inspired consistently. Folks who bridged networks, presbyteries, and synods across the nation for years, some for generations, question what might happen next.

We acknowledge the uncertainty, admit our anger, and lament the way the process unfolded. The wounds are real, yet we’re still here. Life is pumping through our bodies. Purpose courses through our veins.

Visions are waiting to be imagined, dreams to be birthed. We are miracles. Miracles in the making. Battered as we might be, broken as we might be, fragile as we might be, the Lord’s strength is perfected in our weakness.

Our future is uncertain, yet certainly, God has not left us.

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Gazing at my child’s miracle, I have to believe a healing, hope-filled miracle is possible within me… and you… and us.

So, I believe the God who cares for Alice, cares for us. While I don't know what the future holds or how things might unfold, I can’t “unsee” what I have seen. God offers critical care to me, to us, as God also cares for my daughter in ICU.

I am sitting with hope, with expectation, with the belief that God can do a miracle. A miracle with us. We are miracles - miracles in the making.

Update (by Nancy and Shelvis): Alice was released from the hospital on the 17th of February, a week after her brain surgery. In twelve months, a repeat angiogram will check whether the procedure increased the blood flow to her brain. We feel very hopeful.

Alice ran to join her classmates when she returned to school on March 12th. She is doing incredibly well. Thank you so much for all the prayers, meals, stuffed animals, hospital visits, and emotional support. We feel so loved.

A week before the surgery, we learned that our positions as mission co-workers with PC(USA) would end, along with our MCW colleagues. Over the last few weeks, we grieved the loss of this long, beautiful season with our co-worker team while also praying that PC(USA)’s new model for mission will be a blessing to global partners and U.S. churches.

Thank you for being a part of our support team for almost 17 years. Words cannot express what your accompaniment has meant to us. Through both joyful and challenging seasons, we have never felt alone. The love of individuals, churches, presbyteries, seminaries, mission networks, the NWMC, the PC(USA) and RCA national offices, our partners in East Africa, our Mission Haven family, as well as each of the communities we have called “home,” strengthened and expanded our hearts.

We never felt ready for or worthy of the roles God allowed us to play, but God sent us anyway. God’s purposes are much greater than our fears. Our Source is more powerful than our flaws.

So, thank you for praying us through life in Kenya, South Sudan, Uganda, the United Kingdom, and the U.S. You’ve encouraged us from the shade of mango trees to the halls of Oxford and back. God granted us extraordinary teams to work with in East Africa (at RECONCILE, BATC, and ACROSS) and phenomenal sending organizations in the U.S. through the PC(USA) and RCA. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

We would love to keep in touch. Please reach out to us at nancyandshelvis@gmail.com.

Until we connect again, may God bless you and keep you. May God fill you with the peace that surpasses understanding. May that same peace overflow into our broken world, a world deeply in need of beautiful, healing miracles. Amen.

Nancy and Shelvis