my first broken heart.

I had a difficult phone call to make this week to a girl named Rebecca whose sponsor child recently left the orphanage to live with his mom.  I knew she had a deep connection with Jose, and it wouldn't be easy to break the news to her.  I explained the situation and heard her voice catch as she held back tears.  I’ve had this conversation before, and my knee-jerk reaction was to explain that children do categorically better when raised with a family member rather than in an institution.  But it didn’t feel right.  This was a young girl who just realized she would never see her little boy again.  Statistics were not what she needed.

Instead I asked her, “Did you know I was just 14 when I took my first mission trip with Back2Back?”

There was a pause on the other end as she undoubtedly wondered what that had to do with Jose. “No,” she answered kindly.

“I was about your age, and on the first day there I met a very sad three-year-old girl named Karla.  Her mom had recently left her and her infant sister at the orphanage.  I had never seen a sullen three-year-old until then.  She didn’t smile, or laugh, or play, the way most three-year-olds do.  The first day, she clung to me.  When I came back the next day, I saw her smile for the first time as I came over and picked her up.  I spent the next week holding her, telling her how special she was, and how much I loved her.

“I went home and my world was changed.  I did everything in my power to get back to Karla.  I held a rummage sale, raised money, and joined a church I was not a member of on a mission trip a few months later.  The first thing I did when I got back to the orphanage was look for Karla.  I wanted her to know I hadn’t forgotten her.  I didn’t want to be another person who let her down.

“I looked all over-- in her dorm room, the playground, the kitchen, the classroom.  Karla wasn’t in any of those places.  In my broken Spanish I asked the staff about her.  They told me her mom had come back for her.  She was gone.

“I still pray for Karla.  She’s 17 now.  I wonder where she is, what kind of girl she became, if she knows she’s special.  I spent just one week with her, but my life was never the same.”

I stopped there.  I wasn’t sure if my story would be a comfort, or if she would rather I just let her off the phone.

“Thank you,” she said quietly. “I bet Karla is a great girl.”

“I think so too.  If you would like to write Jose one last letter, I can try to get it to him and his mom.  We know where they are staying.”

A couple days later I got her letter to Jose.  I peeked to read her sweet words telling him his picture is hung up in her locker, that he is special, and she will never stop praying for him.  I thought of Karla’s picture on my desk at home, and smiled to think of how God will use a heart like Rebecca’s. 

I don’t understand why things happen the way they do, or why God allows our hearts to break.  But I do know if we let Him, He won’t waste it.  He is the Great Healer and The One who can work all things to good.