Yet when my mom and grandma came to visit two weeks ago, Mom brought some Reader’s Digests she had been saving for me. I knew I wouldn’t be able to keep away from reading them, but at the same time I didn’t really want them; I thought of them as one more thing on my never-ending to-do list.

In the evenings I would skim through the magazines and pick out the articles I wanted to read. I had another motive for getting through them as quickly as I could: to get them out of the house and into the hands of the children at the orphanage, who frequently use magazines for school projects.

As I skimmed through one issue, I found a short article on identifying a drowning person. I read through the article, as I had been interested in the subject but never devoted time to researching it on my own. Drowning was on my mind a lot as the children’s favorite outing is swimming. It was scary reading the statistics: 90 percent of children drown under the watch of their parents, simply because it’s not the violent and loud scenario that we think it is. Instead it is silent and often very still.

The next day, Sunday, we had a church outing. Children from the congregation jumped into the pool with no adult supervision. I was watching for children terrorizing other children, which is a favorite activity of good swimmers to do to those who are more cautious of water. I hate that style of teasing and immediately discipline any child using fear to make fun of another.

As I was scanning the pool, I saw it: a little boy, arms stretched out to the sides, with only his forehead above the water. His motionless floating and silence was precisely as the article I had read the night before described. A nearby child was clueless to the event, so I yelled to him, “This child is drowning! He is drowning!” Fortunately being tall enough to walk to the child, he pulled him out of the water and handed him to me.

My nerves on end, I knew I couldn’t leave the pool, as much as I wanted to. The scene was chaos with so many children; how could I possibly watch them all, with no one else around to help? I wanted to give up and lay the responsibility on the parents, but I stayed anyhow. It was a good thing I did, because I saw it again: this time, a little girl, in the same position as the boy. Two boys around the girl were playing and oblivious to her condition. I yelled out, “That girl is not all right! Pull her out!” They grabbed her and handed her to me. It was another close encounter.

After the third save

When the third child for the day was drowning, I had no option but to jump in myself. The girls around him thought he was playing, and they were laughing at him. I knew they would not be able to help pull him out– so I did. I handed him to my mom, who waited outside the water for me to hand him to her.

If I had never read the article, I would not have known I was watching three children drown. I know that impeccable timing is not coincidence but divine providence.

Right away with the first boy, I knew the article had been handed to me by God through a series of life events that led up to those important moments. God made me a lifelong reader for a reason. God had my mom buy Reader’s Digest for a reason for all those years. And for some reason, he put it in her heart to think of me as she packed them along in her suitcase. God put me in South Africa on that particular day for a reason.  Some of these events had been lined up even before these children were born– because God knows all the plans he has for us (Jeremiah 29:11).

Life has a way of building into a crescendo; we look back at events that shape what is happening in this moment. God built up to this for well over a decade. For what– to have me bask in the glory of being a hero? Surely not, for fortunately my efforts went largely unnoticed that day. It was for God to say, “I mean it when I say my eye is on the sparrow. And today, I saw these three sparrows and thought I’d just prep the way for watching over them.”

Praise be to God who sets our lives in motion to fulfill his promises to us today!

It reminds me of the difficult task it can be to raise or mentor children. It is easy to praise them for good work but to scold them for their shortcomings. Sometimes I feel all I do is nag at them to get them to behave correctly. There is a time for correction but there is always a time for a loving word.

Our children suffer much. Every word counts.

It becomes even more apparent to me these days as our children come back from the holidays. Many of them get to stay with extended family, but it is always a painful reminder to them that they are not truly wanted, for they end up back at the orphanage. This is a time of year that we need to be sensitive to these children in our corrections and when they feel down.

We have a brother and sister who are both difficult to deal with in their own ways. They came back today not because their extended family dropped them off—instead, their mother abandoned them. Again.

The girl is already doing something I have been working on her with, but I just don’t have the heart to speak negatively at this time. Is correcting a mannerism more important than showing her that somebody cares about her? No, it’s not; we can work on that when she feels loved and accepted here.

We can let a painful past get in the way of raising a child correctly. But for this day and for this time, they need a word of encouragement when they feel like a failure. I’m a failure because if I wasn’t, my family would like me.

Want to let a child know they are loved? Make a short video, upload it on YouTube, and send it to me. I’ll make sure they see it. Contact me for the name of a child to encourage.

I’m not usually the type to make New Year’s resolutions, as I would rather enact change right when I’m in the mood instead of storing it up for the next year. However, 2012 is a little different for me. I am very excited for what God has in store for 2012, and I am eager to get a difficult 2011 behind me! I have drafted up 19 “goals” as I call them (rather than resolutions) for 2012. Some are already working their way into play (such as ministry plans here at Charity and Faith), some are one time check-offs (getting a pet cat? Too easy!), and some are new. Therefore, 19 is not as daunting of a number as it sounds.

However, I wanted to share just one with you, as I would love to have others join me in a simple but life-changing resolution. I am going to challenge myself to memorizing one piece of Scripture per week. It is simple, easy to do, doesn’t actually take that much time… but I never do it.

I used to memorize one or more verses per week when I went through Awana. I’m still holding on to about 75% of those verses, and I’ve memorized quite a few since then. But, I know my capacity is far beyond what I have actually been doing, and it’s time to step up to that challenge. If I want to mature and hide God’s word in my heart, rather than thinking, “Oh, I know there’s a verse out there that say something like this,” then I need to get it done.

Here is the tactic I’m using: starting on January 1, each week I will have a new verse or passage posted on the sidebar of the blog at the top. That is the verse I am focusing on for the week. Each day, a simple 5 minutes of concentration (perhaps more if it’s a bit lengthier) will go a long way in committing a single sentence or two to memory. But here’s the catch– I can’t just repeat a verse for a week and move on, never to look at it again. So, as each week goes by, the next verse will simply be added to the previous one. Thus, in week 2, I will be practicing 2 verses- one from the previous week and a new one.

So what do you say? Here’s to a New Year in the Year of Our Lord!

As I mentioned before, the holidays can be a painful reminder to children that they are unwanted. These sisters never could go anywhere because they had no known family and the foster-mother had given up on the job. For every school break, we knew that they would be going nowhere.

But then I got a phone call from our social worker, Priscilla, to let me know she was taking the children to their social worker to discuss placement for them. When we arrived, the social worker pulled us into her office.

“The foster mother called,” she said. “She realized she made a big mistake by chasing all the children away, and she wants to foster again. She wants to take these two sisters.”

She wants them. The older sister, who always hides her emotions behind a stoic mask, couldn’t help but form a small smile. Even though it was small, I knew that it meant her joy was so profound that she could no longer pretend to be unaffected by anyone’s words, a coping mechanism she learned to help her keep from feeling rejection again.

The social worker kept saying the same thing: somebody wants these girls. Somebody wants them to be with her from now on. Finally, the girls feel loved and joined in a family.

The foster-mother and the two girls starting a new family

We went straight from the social worker to the mother’s house; the children knew the way. Though the older one still pretended to not be emotionally moved, she couldn’t hide her little smile.

I was so excited for them, too. The greatest thing in these children’s lives is to have a “happy ending” where someone wants them and only them.

The two girls will still come back to the orphanage after the school break, as the social workers will have to process everything to legally place the girls with the new mother.

When they gave me a hug goodbye, I could feel the excitement in their touch. Finally, to be loved! I have never had parental love revoked from me, but I would imagine that if I knew what it was like to be forgotten, I would feel on top of the world to know that I am no longer forgotten, but now a Forget-me-not.

Praise God for family!