even when my heart is breaking.

Today has been a hard day. My first week here I went to the Sanyu Babies home and I posted pictures of me holding sweet Jacob. This past week when we went I walked in to all of the babies laying on the floor and when Jacob saw me he got the biggest grin on his face! I was so excited that he remembered me! A lot of the babies were sick and the workers did not want me to take him outside. I tickled his belly, gave him a kiss, and left him to sleep in his crib. I found out this morning that Jacob passed away this weekend. Amanda who helps adopting parents there told me that they were not sure why he died. She thought he might have been anemic. The babies home did not have enough money to take him to the good international hospital, so he did not receive the best care. This is what makes me want to take one of these children home. In the states he would have received treatment and if he had a problem more than likely it would have been discovered when he was very young.
I am crushed. Jacob has no parents to mourn for him. So I will. I don't even know if he had a funeral or if anyone went if he did. This precious little boy helped to show me the kingdom of God in the 3 short hours that I spent with him. He trusted me when I picked him up and he smiled when I spoke to him. That is how the Lord wants us to be with Him. He wants us to trust that He will hold us and pick us up when we need it. We are supposed to smile when He speaks to us and always feel secure in His love. I pray that Jacob felt loved by me, and I pray that somehow he knows that I will miss him. I pray that he knows that when I get to Sanyu tomorrow I will go straight to his crib just to make sure there is not some kind of mistake, and I will hope to see his smiling face and his chubby cheeks. I just have to trust that he is in the arms of Christ right now and that someday I will get to hold him again. I don't really have words to correctly express how I am feeling. But this tiny boy showed me that I need to trust the Lord. He will hold me when my heart gets shattered, when I feel alone and confused, and if I just listen for His still soft voice I will receive the peace and joy I have been looking for. I leave you with this passage from Luke. I pray that we would all strive to have a childlike faith and come before our Father with a trusting and expectant heart, like Jacob.

Luke 18:15-17 ¹⁵People were also bringing babies to Jesus to have him touch them. When the disciples saw this, they rebuked them. ¹⁶But Jesus called the children to him and said, "Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. ¹⁷I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it."