jor lay.

Meet Jor Lay.

We’ve known him since the day he was born. He was delivered to our doorstep during a flood when he was five days old; I held him until the mother was delivered a few minutes later on an inner tube. The father and older children helped to get valuables and the littles out from the rising waters.

He was one of the first little babies to like us, and he was often left for me to hold. He learned our names, he learned high fives. He peed and vomited on our floor more times than I could count.

And now he will be two years old next month. He ran in and out of the chaos while we helped tear down their bamboo hut and rebuild it half a kilometer down the road just four weeks ago.

Since they are just a half a kilometer down the road, we usually see at least one member of their nine-member-family every day. The kids are often around to play or to see friends.

But in some ways, half a kilometer is really far. They used to be just steps away.  We used to see everyone day after day, at wee hours of the morning and wee hours of the night.

Today, I was making bread in the kitchen when I heard a little voice shouting our names.

I’m getting better at recognizing, but I hadn’t heard this one in awhile. And he’s pretty little to be walking over by himself. I shouted to Stephen anyway, “Is that Jor Lay?”

Sure enough. He had walked over with his mom and five-year-old sick brother, Jor Gee, to visit!  We sat outside chatting for a minute, got some medicine for Jor Gee, and gave high fives and hugs.

Apparently he had asked for us all morning, saying in Burmese, “Kelli Stephen house go!”

So they came. And we loved it.

And it was an answer to prayer.

Just hours earlier I was praying for God to show us the ministry we have here. Sometimes it feels like we are just crazy: to live here, to make this our lives and now our work, to think for a second that it makes a difference. To hope that maybe, just maybe they might see Christ in our daily lives.

The doubt creeps in–more days than I’d like to admit–and all the decisions we made boldly suddenly look pale.  Today was one of those days. I just prayed that in the next couple weeks before we go to the States that we might see the hope of why we live here, why we will come back, and what He has planned for us ahead.

And then Jor Lay came, and we saw the relationships with these beautiful families. We saw their beautiful smiles. I was reminded of how my heart jumps when I hear voices I haven’t heard in a few days!

Because God is good, even through little bitty almost-two-year-olds.