Oh the glory that the Lord has made

I wasn't going to blog again. I thought about it. I thought maybe I'd do a blog about what it's like to be home after so long. Maybe I still will. But what brought me back to the blog today was an event I read about on the blogs of my friends who are still on the ship.

She was a sweet baby. I met her my very first weekend in Africa. She was nine months old but looked like and weighed about as much as a newborn. Her big brown eyes took in everything and nothing as she allowed everyone to hold her. She had been in the feeding program for so long. Her cleft lip and cleft palate did not allow her to achieve the suction she needed to nurse. So her mother brought her from Togo to Benin, to the Africa Mercy, for help.

Everyone loved her. Every woman from the ship felt like she was theirs. We all held her, took pictures with her, rubbed her back, and dreamed of the day she would be strong enough for surgery.

Towards the end of the time of surgeries in Benin, she finally was strong enough. They fixed her cleft lip, and she was to return when the ship with in Togo so that they could repair her palate.

Her mother brought her back. And, three days ago or so, she died. The sweet little girl that stole all our hearts.

My heart broke as I read that. Not for the sweet baby Anicette. She is in Heaven now, smiling with perfect lips, and being cradled by her Father. But my heart broke for her mother. Her family. And for us.

And I thought about how there are people around the world who are mourning her passing, the passing of a little baby from a tiny village in Togo. And how significant her life was because of that.

Then I realized that I had it all backwards. Her life was significant apart from us. We did not make her significant by knowing her, by loving her. We were appreciating what was already there. Had she died much younger, unknown by people of the western world, she would have still been significant. She is a child of God.

We read statistics about how many child die each day, from hunger, war, disease, and it's so easy to forget that each one of them is made in God's image. Each one of them has a story all their own, with people who cared about them. Each one of them is valuable. Each one of them is significant. We let the big picture blind us to the individual parts of the story. The people. And they are who matter.