Answered Prayer

I received an email a few days ago from an orphan I met nearly three years ago. I met her in a Romanian orphanage and she forever changed my life. She had lived in one of the hardest orphanages in the country. She had been through so much. 12 years, she lived there in unspeakable conditions. I remember tearfully saying goodbye to her on that fall day in Romania. The goodbye and the sadness and innocence in her eyes, left me with a heart broken in a way that I had never experienced before.

I remember while in Romania that year, we heard word that the White Sox’s 88 year wait had come to an end. They had won the world series. I didn’t care. Nothing else seemed to matter. For the first time in a long time, I didn’t care about what everyone was talking a bout at the water cooler. I didn’t care about what was on the news back home. All I could think about was that young girl’s image that disappeared in the distance and fog on the bus window. I wondered if I would ever see her again. I diligently prayed for her everyday after that meeting. I prayed she would not become a lost child statistic of Romania.

The Lord granted the two of us a friendship that would stretch not only across the miles, but over an ocean. One year after our first meeting, I saw her again. This time she was sitting on a bench next to me in a park. We were catching up and she was telling me about living in a transitional home and high school. She had finally gotten out of the hole that she lived in. That orphanage was a place of abuse, neglect, and a darkness that I cannot describe, but can only see in my mind’s eye. There was an evilness there that literally sent chills up your spine while walking through the halls of what many of those children called home. I was so thankful she was doing well. She sat next to me with an entire year’s worth of printed out emails, that I had sent her, in her backpack. She had kept each and every email.

One year after that, in 2007, I met her again while in Romania. This time she had dinner with our mission team group that was staying at a nearby hotel. I think the coolest thing about that meeting was not just seeing her look good, safe, and pursuing an education, but was that she was just like one of us. We weren’t having dinner with an “orphan” we were having dinner with a friend. She was one of us and I so enjoyed seeing her in that light and watching others treat her as such. She was going to school then during the day and working at night. She also had her very first apartment.

This is the first year I won’t see her since that meeting in 2005. It’s hard. I miss Romania and I miss her. When I opened that email from her, I not only learned that she is now a college student, I was abruptly reminded how the Lord answers our prayers. For three years, He has answered my prayers for her. That morning of the email, I was so proud of her, and so thankful that Creator of the universe takes time out each day to listen to my plea for her. God is good.