I haven’t mentioned it here, but a funny little blip came across my radar two months ago. At that point, we were truly just holding our nose above the drowning waters, knowing we were past the big waves. I got a random message from someone I know very loosely. She knew Asa had liver cancer and asked if I would be willing to offer counsel to a family who was considering adoption of a child with liver cancer. Easy answer. But, of course. And I sat back and began to watch God show off.
Two years ago, not too long before Asa came along, a little boy was born to a Chinese couple, a little boy with a big liver tumor that made his belly stick out like Asa’s did. And the same couple, I’m sure distraught with the one child policy and the thought of their only heir being imperfect, sickly, left that babe at a hospital. Diagnosis: hepatoblastoma, the one in a million kid cancer that Asa had, the one that Texas Children’s, one of the few hospitals in the states that treats this cancer, only sees 10 cases a year from all over the southern US. But what happens next is entirely strange. Instead of getting pitiful orphan care, this Chinese boy got top-notch, cutting-edge medical treatment. He was stabilized, whisked in and treated with chemo-embolization – chemo straight to his liver and he went through exactly what Asa went through, the horrid secondary effects of sloughing off tumor, called tumor lysis, and he victory of all victories, survived. It was a long hard road, but it appears, as it does with Asa, no more cancer. He was put in an orphanage, group type home and he thrived, but no one adopted him, because that big C word, it’s scarier than a lot of more obvious physical disabilities.
But along comes a family, a family who has experienced their own loss, a family who just so happens to speak Mandarin, but God has yanked them up and dumped them in the rural central US, filled their home with a few other physical disabilities, and left them, left them a few hours from the other major hospital in the US that deals with this one in a million chance cancer. Their house is full, very full, but along their radar comes a smiling face, a familiar face, because dark eyes and round faces are still on their hearts, and a boy named Jun Jun captures them.
And then I was called for counsel. What is hepatoblastoma? What does this mean? Do you understand these medical records? I was called, the parent of a child treated not only for this cancer, but with chemo-embolization, not a standard procedure in children in the US for this cancer. Tony and I may be the only parents in the US at this time that would have that experiential knowledge regarding a child. Explain that. You can’t. But God.
The story departs to a weird, seemingly diverted path at this point. After all the discussion, the couple who inquired suddenly decided that they weren’t so sure that God was calling them to this child and went to prayer and as back up, they held their arms out and handed Jun Jun to us, the only other couple without gross fear of his condition. And we were left for a week or so to wrestle in prayer for this boy, and wrestle with the fact that we are a bit older than this couple. During that week, God turned the world upside down on behalf of this boy. People began offering this other couple serious money for adoption expenses, expenses on an adoption they weren’t even decided upon, an adoption they hadn’t even announced. Someone offered to take their special needs kids while they went to back and forth to China – twice. After this and prayer, it became abundantly clear where Jun Jun was supposed to be. And after jumping a few more hurdles, last week Jun Jun was cleared by China to be adopted by this family.
And today I sat in church and listened to a man speak about God’s heart for the widow and the orphan and I was again reminded through another story that God truly moves mountains upon their behalf and again, I saw God weave deep redemption from suffering. Dark doesn’t win. Light does, no morbid second act where all goes wrong. Great joy! The end game is settled.
