24. "Please Send Me Parents!"

Aisha lay on her futon in the baby's room of the orphanage. She heard an occasional loud noise, but otherwise everything was silent . . . always silent. Aisha was hearing impaired. She couldn't understand what people shouted because she'd never learned a language. Her divorced mother had become so frustrated that she had abandoned Aisha at an orphanage. Who wanted a deaf girl? In the orient, only boys mattered anyway. Aisha cried in the darkness. She wanted Mommy. Why didn't Mommy want her?

The orphanage people took the children to the Catholic Church every day. Aisha didn't understand the priest, but he treated her kindly. Somehow she associated kindness with the statue of the man who was hanging on the cross. Her heart cried out to Him: "Please send me parents!"

One day a strange lady came for Aisha. She had a pale face and funny looking eyes. Aisha didn't like the lady, but she had no choice. She had to go with her. They got onto an airplane, and flew all night and into the next day. When they landed they met a smiling man and a boy about Aisha's age. Through the years Aisha learned to love these people. One day she realized that God had answered her prayer. He had sent her parents.

And so we get a glimpse of our stewardship of helping orphans and others who have no family.