A little child shall show them the way

One night I had worked hard to help a mother in a labour ward, but in spite of all we did, she died, leaving us with a tiny baby and a crying two-year-old child. It would be difficult to keep the baby alive; we had no incubator, and although we lived on the equator, nights could be very chilly.

A student midwife ran to get a box and cotton wool in which to wrap the baby. Another went to stoke up the fire and fill a hot water bottle, but she came back in distress; our last bottle had burst. Rubber perishes easily in tropical climates.

‘Then put the baby as near the fire as you safely can,’ I said. ‘And sleep between her and the door to keep her free from drafts. Your job tonight is to keep the baby warm.’

The following noon, as I did most days, I went to have prayers with any of the orphanage children who chose to gather with me. I gave the youngsters various suggestions of things to pray about, including the tiny baby, explaining our problem about keeping the baby warm, mentioning the hot water bottle; ‘The baby could easily die if it gets a chill,’ I said. And then I told them of the two-year-old sister, crying because her mother had died.

During the prayer time, Ruth, a precocious 10-year-old, prayed with the usual bluntness of a child, ‘Please God, send us a hot water bottle. It’ll be no good tomorrow for the baby might die. Please send it this afternoon.’

I gasped inwardly at the audacity of the prayer, and then she added, ‘... and while you’re at it, please send a dolly for the little girl so she’ll know you love her.’ As often with the children’s prayers, I couldn’t honestly say, ‘Amen.’ Oh yes, God can do anything, the Bible says so. But there are limits, aren’t there? I mean, I’d been in Africa for almost four years and I had never, ever received a parcel from home, and anyway, who would send me a hot water bottle? I lived on the equator!

Halfway through the afternoon while I was teaching in the nurses’ training school, a message arrived that there was a car at my front door. By the time I reached home, the car had gone, but there, on the veranda, was a big parcel. I felt tears pricking my eyes. I couldn’t open the parcel alone, so I sent for the orphanage children and with excitement mounting we carefully undid each knot as forty pairs of eyes were fixed on the big cardboard box.

Eyes sparkled as I lifted out brightly coloured, knitted jumpers, and there were knitted bandages for the leprosy patients. Then, as I put my hand in again, I felt... no, it couldn’t be! It was a hot water bottle! I felt ashamed. I hadn’t prayed for it; I hadn’t truly believed that God would do it. Ruth was in the front row and she rushed forward, crying out, ‘If God sent the bottle, he must have sent the dolly too!’

And rummaging down to the bottom of the box, she pulled out a small, beautifully dressed dolly. Ruth’s eyes shone! She had never doubted.

That parcel had been on its way for five whole months. Packed by my former Sunday school class whose leader had heard God’s prompting and sent a hot water bottle... to the equator. And one of the girls had put in a dolly for an African child – five months before the believing prayer of a ten-year-old girl.

The prophet was right wasn’t he, when he said, ‘I will answer them before they even call to me. While they are still talking about their needs, I will go ahead and answer their prayers!’ (Isaiah 65 v 24).