I did this so that you might trust the power of God rather than human wisdom.
1 Corinthians 2:5 (NLT)

If you’ve read Claire’s story, you know it is truly miraculous that she is alive today. She has defied the odds time and time again, and we know the fact that she is with us today is a testimony to the Great Healer, who has moved mightily in her life. Behind all the big miracles are countless “little” ones – too many to recount, but too magnificent to ignore.

We wanted to share one miracle with you… summed up so briefly in her Amazing Story with the line: They needed to transfer her to a different hospital to operate.

For Westerners living in China, sometimes it is hard to wrap our mind around the way the medical system in China works, when we know how it works at home. Hospitals don’t allow parents/guardians with the children in ICU, the wards are chaotic and full, and sometimes simple things – like child life experts whose job it is to make things less scary for the children – are overlooked. We have great confidence in the medical teams who treat our children, but sometimes we do struggle with the different cultural approaches to the care our children need.

Never has it been more apparent than in Claire’s latest surgery and recovery. The hospital with the medical team and operating room best equipped to deal with her surgery was renovating their PICU. They did not have another place to move their PICU on-site, so they had begun transferring their patients to a nearby hospital with a functioning PICU. As Westerners, we visualize a world where such a transfer would occur seamlessly – with the children being airlifted to the neighboring hospital in state-of-the-art helicopters outfitted with the most advanced critical care machinery and technology.

In Claire’s situation, it involved a bumpy stretcher ride down the public elevators of the hospital, through the public lobby, to a waiting ambulance out front – all in those highly unstable moments shortly after finishing a highly risky 9-hour-surgery. In China, the ambulances have no medical equipment; only a bench for the nurse to sit on. Instead of being transferred in a self-contained unit with all of her medical equipment safely mounted on her bed, each piece of equipment was being hand-carried by a different nurse or technician. Imagine trying to smoothly move through a crowded hospital with a child on a bed and a handful of attending nurses and doctors crowded around holding oxygen tanks, heart monitors, and IV bags – everyone trying their best not to jostle or disturb all the wires and monitors and life-sustaining machines.

As they bumped her over the curb and lifted her into the waiting ambulance for the trip to the other hospital, we had to hold our tongues – for everything in us wanted to shout, “Be careful! What are you doing?!”

No sooner had that thought passed through our director’s mind, than a very specific scripture came to her mind: I did this so that you might trust the power of God rather than human wisdom. 1 Corinthians 2:5 (NLT)

We all live with an illusion of control. Western hospitals, with their state-of-the-art machines whirring and buzzing and their well-established systems and procedures, give us a great degree of comfort. We lean upon the systems. We look to the doctors and medical establishments to take care of our needs. We trust what we see: the human wisdom and the calm, cool, and collected faces of seasoned professionals.

But where do we lean in a crowded public elevator with a child on the verge of death stretched out on a bed beside us? Where do we look when we see this fragile child pass through a busy hospital – with the noise and the chaos and the coughing and vomiting and sick crowds? Who do we trust when we see her being jostled and bumped into an ambulance not even equipped with the most basic first aid supplies?

We can choose to fear or we can choose to trust in the power of God.

In those moments, we heard His voice loud and clear… calling us to let go of the illusions of control. Reminding us that even in those highly efficient Western hospitals, with the latest and greatest everything, He is still the author and sustainer of life. When we lean on and look at and trust in anything other than Him, we are living in an illusion.

We had no choice with Claire… we could not control the situation or change the outcome. We had to trust that she was in God’s hands. And, He provided all that she needed. Though it was not the only time she was transferred between the two hospitals during her treatment, and though she coded during one of the transfers, He carried her through – sustaining and healing her.