The Geography of Miracles

Midtown
Atlanta, Georgia


Can a miracle really be a click away?

With the advent of the Internet, high resolution satellite imaging of the entire world, and with wireless digital communication of all kinds, distance has lost much of its meaning. Gone are the days when it took six months to two years for a letter to be delivered by a ship’s captain to a recipient on the far side of the world. Now it takes but a fraction of a second for a long letter with photos to be sent to a thousand people simultaneously in dozens of countries. The world does seem far smaller than it once did. This week the world felt even smaller to me in a numinous way. Sometimes God works in ways that defy explanation, even by systems network engineers.

For seven years I have been involved in an intercessory prayer project that is found in twenty four countries and as many American states. On Thursday night a large file is e-mailed to me. It contains Christian teachings, answers to prayers, and petitions for new prayer needs. Friday morning after I have edited it, I return it to the sender. On Saturday it is forwarded with photos to people in twenty-four countries. As a result of this prayer network, six hundred children in Kenya are now getting an education that includes safe drinking water, sanitation, solar lighting, and school supplies. Men are gainfully employed cleaning banks and hospitals to augment their meager incomes as ministers. A young gospel singer in South Africa had life saving cancer surgery this week because of this network. A hundred orphans and leprous widows in India eat every day and have clean safe places to live because God is able to send his mercy through this worldwide congregation of intercessors. It goes on this way in twenty-four countries because one person had a vision and reaches out and clicks others a lot, everyday.

A very different kind of Network is to be found in Atlanta, this one also discovered through an Internet link between two of God’s people on the Internet prayer team. Childspring International has special connections in a hundred countries. Children who are born with congenital defects or have experienced catastrophic injuries find their way into this network. It gives these children a real chance at life through the miracle of reconstructive surgery offered to them at no cost. One hundred and fifty children a year come to America to receive extensive treatment and rehabilitation. Airlines, stewardess, hospitals, physicians, and hundreds of volunteers donate their services to bring these miracles to pass for children who have drawn the short straw in life.

An eleven-year-old Bulgarian girl has retino-blastoma and it was only a matter of time before she will have lost all of her eyesight. Attempts at treatment have failed to arrest what is considered a progressive irreversible disease. Some months ago I was asked if I could surf the web and find some kind of facility that might be able to teach Kalina life skills that would enable her to navigate in her growing darkness. I was asked to find one in the southeast United States and if fortunes were really good, perhaps even in Georgia where Childspring has its offices. It is really important to be able to connect host families with these special needs children and a facility here in the southeast would make these logistics much easier. I am in South Carolina so a bit in the dark about what might be in the Atlanta area, if anything. Walgreen’s and CVs build pharmacies on every corner but benefactors don’t put up schools for the visually impaired on every corner, or even in every state. I was not optimistic but kept my thoughts to myself.

Clicking and drilling through the findings Google produced was a bit hopeful. A residential school for the blind turned up in Alabama but it seems that one had to be a resident of the state. Another turned up a couple hundred miles away. Another turned up a thousand miles away and another turned up in Canada. From the web sites it was difficult to determine of these schools could or would provide services to a foreign national and at what cost. Another site turned up after more drilling. The Center for the Visually Impaired turned up on virtual radar. From the web site it was not possible to tell if the Center could help her or would, or at what cost. Further research and contact proved that there would be a good fit for Kalina in this Center. It would also be able to provide Kalina’s services at no cost. There are some incredible benefactors that have made this magnificent program possible. As it turns out this fine facility is located a mere ten blocks from the Childspring offices! I can walk from one office to the other in twenty minutes or less. I started out hoping to find something in the western hemisphere and ended up finding the best possible answer within walking distance. An advertising slogan for the yellow pages says, “Let your fingers do the walking.” In this case the slogan ought to read, “Let your God do the clicking.”

I am in South Carolina and was asked by an agency in another state to find special assistance for a child from Bulgaria. I was asked to see if we could find services in the southeast. She ended up in the neighborhood.

Kalina was able to enter the Center for the Visually Impaired and learn those skills that will be so essential to her having a full and meaningful life. This Center proves to be a premier facility at teaching independence skills to the visually impaired. In fact, this is the primary mission of the facility. Kalina has just lost her remaining vision and she just graduated from this program on Friday, along with fifteen other children who make their life journeys in physical darkness. However, they travel in the brilliance of the love of God and those generous benefactors who made this opportunity possible. I was invited into this sacred space to see the baton of God’s love handed to these children by volunteers and staff that have found a passion that consumes them. Watching this graduation program in the basement of a building in downtown Atlanta was every bit the equal of my awe-inspiring experiences in the great cathedrals of Europe,

If one is uncertain if the world really is a warm friendly place, then one merely needs to visit the Center for the Visually Impaired and watch the volunteer staff work with these children. There really are people in America doing grand things and not getting paid for it with the currency of this realm. They are piling up their treasures in other places.