Last Lessons#69 - KIDS

“Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb a reward.”  Psalm 127:3

Something very influential happened in my life before we moved on from London to Tanzania.  Bob and I (along with our 2-year-old Annie) were privileged to attend Westminster Chapel in London where we heard Dr. D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones preach.  Even though the chapel was not heated, we wrapped up warmly and listened to the best sermons I had ever heard. I bought a book by him called LET NOT YOUR HEART BE TROUBLED.  It helped me so much that I bought all his books that I could get my hands on.  They set my course for reading the best Christian books.  I highly recommend anything written by Lloyd-Jones.    

That was in England, but when we arrived in Tanzania (at that time called Tanganyika), we were sent to Tanga to study Swahili.  Tanga is located on the coast of the Indian Ocean and almost on the Equator.  It was hot!  We stayed in a small house next to the missionary couple who would teach us Swahili.  Five days later, during the night, I experienced severe abdominal pain and my doctor- husband Bob diagnosed appendicitis.  As soon as it was daylight, the missionaries (the Bernanders) drove us to the British government hospital where I was admitted.  I won’t go into detail, but my surgery was a terrible experience because I was three months pregnant and the British surgeon was a butcher.  Through that ordeal God was merciful and I knew it. 1) He saved my unborn baby and 2) he gave me Christian nurses aides who were kind and bathed me twice a day to keep me cool in Tanga’s heat.  These nurses aides had just been trained in the very hospital (five hours drive away) where Bob would be working.  Who would have thought!

After a short Swahili training, we arrived at our station Bumbuli in the Usambara Mountains.  The Lutherans had a mud-brick hospital in this beautiful location where medical assistants were trained.  Bumbuli is about 4,000 ft elevation so it was always cool.  Interestingly, African violets were first found on these mountains and we were able to go out and pick wild violets.  The soil is rich and there is enough rain so that flowers proliferate.  I could not have lived in a more beautiful spot.

Our first house was small and mud brick with tin roof and about 50 feet from the hospital.  Kathy was born in the operating room in that hospital in 1958.  Yes, she not only survived my appendectomy, she was a beautiful heathy little girl with lots of dark hair.   

After Kathy was born, we moved into a larger house (still mud brick, wood floors, and tin roof) just across the road.  In January of 1961 Bob picked me up and carried me to the OR of the hospital where he delivered Tova, our third little girl.  It was quite an occasion for a white baby to be born in that hospital and all the hospital staff was present to watch since it was 1a.m. and they were not at work.  Not much privacy, but at that point I wasn’t concerned with privacy.  After the delivery one of the missionary nurses put Tova and me in a small room in her house to recuperate.  That same morning at 8 o’clock, Bob walked in with my typewriter so that I could get some letters out for him!  Typical man on a mission!  But he was very happy with three little girls and so was I.

Children are a gift from God, but they are not ours.  They are placed in our care to raise, not to own.  God owns them and he tells us how to raise them in the Bible.  We are told to baptize them.  Annie had been baptized in Maryland, but Kathy and Tova were baptized in Bumbuli with all our African friends to celebrate. 

I have learned that God is the one who gives us fruit to love, nurture and raise for him – whether fruit of the womb, or foster children, or little African orphans. We are to love them, raise them in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, and then present them back to him to use as he pleases. 

I am so grateful to God for my kids.  I trust you are too!