THE GOD OF SECOND CHANCES

Before I do that, I want to tell you a story about a little boy. This little boy was born in January of last year, January 8th of 1997. His mother was not married to his father. His father was married to someone else. The mother was the mistress of the father. This happened down in Guyana. It's very common among business men and men of position in Guyana--they will often have a wife and a mistress, and maybe another mistress. This little boy was born into a situation like that. The father, as I said, was married to someone else and had children with that wife.

When this little boy was born, he was named after his father. They named him Wendell. Little Wendell lived with his mother for several months. But when Wendell was about seven months old, his mother became ill. She went to the doctor. Her doctor, who looked at her there in Guyana, didn't really know what was wrong. And she went to another doctor and he didn't know what was wrong. She went to several different specialists, and finally they decided that she had a very serious cancer. Less than a month later, she died and left Wendell alone. At that time he was about 8 months old.

Wendell's father went to his wife and said, "We need to take this little boy and bring him into our home." And the father's wife said, "No, you're not bringing that child into my home." So Wendell stayed with his aunt and with his grandmother, but they were very poor and they couldn't care for Wendell very well. Two months later, in November of last year, they finally took him to the hospital in Georgetown, the capitol city, and they left him there.

At that time Wendell was 10 months old and weighed 7 pounds. He was just about dead, having nearly starved to death. As is common with children who are abandoned in Guyana, they just took him to the hospital and literally left him on the doorstep and ran away. The doctors and nurses did not know the child's name. They didn't know how old he was. They didn't know anything about him. So they gave him another name, Noel. Around Christmas time they named him Noel Christmas and cared for him in the hospital.

This baby lingered on death's door there for several months, not thriving and not doing well. In fact, the staff really thought he was going to die. So they didn't really care much for him. He stayed in the hospital in Guyana for five months. By the way, those of you who have been to Georgetown, know what that means. A hospital is not a pleasant place to be. Remember the hospital scene in the movie Gone With the Wind? That is real close to what the hospital facility is like in Georgetown. Unfortunately, the hospital in Gone With the Wind was probably better equipped than this one in Georgetown today.

He stayed there for 5 months, and during that time no one in his family came to visit him. His father didn't come. His father lived there in Georgetown, but he didn't come to see him. His aunt didn't come. His grandmother didn't come. They left him there alone.

In April of this year (1998), he was moved from the Georgetown hospital to the Red Cross Children's Home in Georgetown. At that time he was about 15 months old and weighed about 11 pounds. [Editor's note: average 15-month-old boy weighs 24 pounds in the States.] They moved him there to the children's home, where they really didn't know what was going to happen to him next. Again, none of his family came to see him. He was 15 months old. He wasn't walking. He wasn't talking. He was mainly laying there. He didn't have much strength. He only weighed 11 pounds. He would mainly just lay there. When it came time to feed him, someone would come and feed him. And every couple of hours or so someone would come and change a diaper and that was about it.

In May of 1998, our family became involved in that children's home. We went by and began to visit there. We were introduced to Noel. We began to talk to the administrator and said we would like to take Noel into our home. "He doesn't have anybody, and we'll take him." And the administrative staff and the nurses and those that worked there were delighted and very cooperative. They began to give us permission to take him home with us one day a week. In fact, when the medical mission group from West-Ark was there, we had him part of that time. We couldn't keep him during the night. We could only go and pick him up in the morning about 8 o'clock after he'd had breakfast, and we could keep him until sundown. At sundown we had to take him back.

Noel didn't really know how to act with us. In fact he was really surprised with me. He had never been around a man. He'd never been around a white man. He'd never been around a loud-mouthed white man, like I am, and I was really a shock to Noel's system. He just didn't know how to take me and so constantly, when I was there, he would cry. (As some of you know, there are people that do that today when I walk up. They see me and start to cry. And Noel had the same problem.)

It took months for me to finally get close enough to him where I could pick him up and walk around with him and talk to him. He bonded to my wife and daughters very quickly. And they smothered him with love. We began to work at trying to adopt him. In fact, we decided that we weren't going to leave his name as Noel. That was his official name according to the state. We said, "We're going to name him Isaiah." We liked that name and thought it was a neat name. We didn't really know anything about the name except it was a Biblical name.

So we took Isaiah and began to work toward adopting him. In a third world country that is a challenge under the very best of circumstances. We found out as we went through this process that he had been turned over to the state when he was abandoned and had been assigned a social worker. The particular social worker that he was assigned to was a woman who had been a social worker for the hospital and had been taking care of children and responsible for placing children for years.

In our opinion, things did not seem quite right with how she went about things. She began to hint to us, "You know, it was going to be very difficult to do this. There would be a lot of expenses." Maybe we should come across with some money, as that would certainly help things. We knew that, with the circumstances in developing nations such as Guyana, it was not uncommon for government workers to ask for bribes. We also knew it wasn't uncommon for government workers to be laying traps for you, hoping that maybe you would offer a bribe, and then they'd have you arrested. So we decided early on we were not giving her any money. We were willing to take this child, but we weren't going to give her any money.

When she realized that, we felt she began to do everything she could to undermine our taking Isaiah. In fact, she seemed to work very hard to keep us from getting him. She went out and found the father, then called us and said, "The father is going to raise this child and so you can just forget this baby." Those were her words.

We chose not to forget the baby. We said, "That's fine and we'll talk to his father."

"Oh, no you can't talk to the father. That's not proper. You can't do that."

So we continued to work at it. We finally were able to talk to the father, who never intended on taking the baby to raise. In one meeting, after about 10 minutes, the father said, "Listen, talk to your lawyer and have him draw up the papers and whatever is required for me to give you this child. I'll sign whatever papers need to be signed. You just go ahead and take him." That was a day of celebration at our house. We were real excited.

During this time, we noticed Isaiah had some health problems. And in fact, we had doctors look at him from every team that came down. West-Ark's Dr. Word looked at Isaiah when he was there. The team before that had a pediatrician on the team, and he looked at Isaiah. After you guys were there, the team had an internal medicine specialist, who looked at Isaiah. And I mean, he got great medical care during the times we had medical teams in Guyana. He had all kinds of respiratory problems. As is common with children in Guyana, he had a lot of skin problems--rashes and such. Some of that was because of the water they bathed him in and some because of the lack of nutrition that he was getting and because of other things that were going on in his life. So we had doctors look at him, and they'd prescribe this and they'd prescribe that.

We were keeping our attention on him, but we couldn't feed him breakfast. Most of the time we had to get him back before supper. And we didn't have a whole lot of control as to his environment. Even with the father agreeing to give us the child, the children's home was still real reluctant to let us keep him overnight. We got to one night when he was sick, and that was all.

We continued to work very hard to get Isaiah. Imagine any level of bureaucracy in this country and then multiply it by about thirty and that will tell you what we were up against in Guyana, talking to adoption boards and talking to the people at the passport office, talking to the judge in trying to get custody of the child. We began to see very quickly that it was going to take probably five or six or seven months to adopt Isaiah, and we didn't have that much time. We were leaving in September.

So about August we began to work at another angle. We talked to our attorney there. She said, "What we will do is we'll just have a judge grant you custody of this child. With custody you can take him to and from the country. You can't adopt him with custody, you can't legally change his name, but you can at least have him in your house. And you can take him with you to the States and you can bring him back. And we can start adoption proceedings and all of that."

We applied to see a judge and he said, "That will be fine and I'll see you in six weeks." He scheduled a hearing for September 8th. We were scheduled to leave Guyana on September 12th. So we began very quickly to realize that we're cutting this close.

We had Isaiah's father apply for his passport because we knew only the father could do that. We knew things being the way they are in Guyana that it would take a while to get that passport. So we applied for his passport weeks ahead and got that. Then I went by and talked to the U.S. Embassy and asked them if I could get a visa. Initially, they were not real eager to give me a visa for this child. We convinced them otherwise in the course of talking to them, and they finally decided that they would give us a visa if we got custody.

Finally the day came on Sept. 12th when we went in to see the judge. Before we walked in, my attorney turned to me and said, "Now Mr. DeLoach, when we go into the judge's chambers, I don't want to hear you utter a word." She didn't know what she was asking. Those of you that know me know that she was asking a lot. She said, "You can't say a word unless he directs a question to you. This won't take long. Probably just a few minutes, but you don't say anything. You let me handle everything." And she did. She handled everything great. We were in the judge's chambers about three minutes. I didn't know I could hold my breath for three minutes. I found out that I could. Finally, at the very end of three minutes, he said, "OK I will give you custody." And both Colleen and I, who were sitting side by side, started breathing and started crying in relief. The judge didn't give us the order until the next day. We couldn't apply for his visa until we had the custody order.

We were now at the 9^th of September. We went to the U.S. Embassy and said, "We are here to apply for a visa for our little boy."

And they asked, "Is he U.S. or Guyanese?"

When we said he was Guyanese, "Oh, you'll have to stand in the Guyanese line."

There were about 300 people there that day. And we stood in the line in the rain and waited and waited and waited, and finally got in. And later on that afternoon got back into the embassy and got his visa. Then on September 11^th we got his ticket to leave the country. On the 12^th we finally left with him, and what a relief!

I happen to have pictures of him. If you want to see any of those, I have them close to the front and I'll be more than happy to show them to you.

During that time, it dawned on us how everybody involved in that, both Isaiah and our family, had gotten a second chance. Isaiah had gotten a second chance because he didn't have a family before. So, he had a second chance at having a family and a second chance at experiencing love. If you know my wife and daughters, you know that they really showered Isaiah with love and attention and pampering.

I'm surprised he's learned to walk. He has since learned to walk and is gaining weight and is doing really real well. We're real excited about that, but I'm surprised that he's learned to walk because the girls will carry him wherever he wants to go. But he's gotten a second chance learning to walk. He didn't have a chance at that earlier. He's gotten a second chance at life. I don't believe Isaiah would have lived had he stayed in that children's home. I don't believe he would have lived had he been left alone.

We were quite excited when we got home to the States with him. We went from Guyana to Disney World to celebrate. Boy what an extreme! I can't think of a bigger extreme than going from Guyana to Disney World. Boy, we had a ball! We took him to McDonald's. We've got pictures of him there eating his first Happy Meal. (He wasn't very happy, but we got pictures of him anyway.) We got pictures of him with Mickey Mouse, Winnie the Pooh, and all these other characters, and we just had a ball. When we got home we took him to our local pediatrician there in Fayetteville, where they took tests and began to figure out where we were with him and all of that.

On October 12^th of this year, we found out that Isaiah is HIV positive.

And our world fell apart that day. Since that time we've been talking to specialists down at Arkansas Children's Hospital. In fact, we're scheduled to go down there again Tuesday. We've got Isaiah on medicine. And even since his diagnosis he's still gaining half a pound a week. To a little bitty boy, that's a lot of weight. In fact, if you'll look at the pictures, you'll see a picture the first day we met him on May 21^st, when he looks like one of the children you would see in a starving nation of Africa. Then you'll see a picture right below that which was taken about 2 weeks ago, and he looks just like any other kid from the States. He's fat and sassy and smiling and thriving. It dawned on me, that even in view of the HIV, Isaiah had gotten a second chance. You see, if he had stayed in Guyana, he would have surely died without any treatment at all. Because medicine costs about $1500 a month. They could not have spent that in Guyana to keep him alive. He would have died.

It dawned on me through all of this that Isaiah wasn't the only one who had gotten a second chance. We got a second chance. My youngest daughter is 11 years old. So we got a second chance at having a baby in the house.

I can remember this, almost to the day, this time last year, sitting with my brother in Kansas City (he's a preacher there). I can remember telling him with great pride that I have changed my last diaper. [Audience laughed.] He reacted the way you did. We were in a McDonald's there in Kansas City, where there was a woman sitting about three tables from us. And I don't know how she overheard me talking, but she did. I could see her reaction to my announcement. She was grinning and smiling and looking at me as if to say, "Boy, you are a foolish, foolish man to make a statement like that." My brother was reasoning with me, "Now Steve, wait a minute. You've got three daughters and they're gonna have grandchildren and you'll change their diapers." "Oh, no, I'm not going to change their diapers. You know, if they make those grandchildren, they can change those diapers, or their grandmother can change them. I've changed my last diaper." I was quite proud of that. I wish I could find that woman from McDonald's and tell her, "Boy, you were right." She didn't say a word to me, she didn't say a word. But she spoke volumes with the look on her face as she was watching me bragging about changing my last diaper. And I've gotten a second chance to do that.

I've gotten a second chance at having a boy. I've got three girls. Growing up in a family full of boys, my brothers, who all can't seem to have anything but boys, have given me a lot of grief over that. So I've gotten a second chance at having a boy. So now when they say, "Here comes that wimp who can only have girls," I say, "Sorry, you see that little boy here." And it's given me a second chance at that. It's given us a second chance at having a baby in the house and the joy that that brings. And it has been real joy.

It wasn't until just about two, maybe three weeks ago, I began to dig around and I found that the name Isaiah means "God saves." We didn't know that when we chose that name for him. God saves. It dawned on me that there couldn't have been a more appropriate name for Isaiah. In fact, God has saved him in virtually every way - physically, emotionally, spiritually and in every way.

It dawned on me, too, as I thought about this story, that we are a people of the second chance, every one of us. You see, all of us are here today because God has given us a second chance. And in fact, that is what God's business is. His whole business is about giving a second chance. "The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God," the second chance that He gives us, "is eternal life through Christ Jesus, our Lord."

This has been a real emotional roller coaster for us, dealing with this little boy. But it's been a real eye opener to us as well, because we've learned so many things that I don't think I would have learned any other way. I'm pretty hard headed. I've learned about loving an adopted child. I never could understand, for instance, why or how a family that adopted a child could love that child as their own. I really didn't understand that. We've had friends who had adopted children, and they told me that they love that child as their own. I thought, well that sounds good, but I don't see how that could happen.

I can tell you with all certainty that Isaiah is loved as my own. I look at him and feel as if he is my flesh and blood. It's quite obvious that he's not. He's of African origin--a little black boy. It's quite obvious that he doesn't belong to us. You ought to see the stares we get when we walk around in town. It's kind of interesting. But, he is my little boy.

And it dawned on me as I experienced that, that God is the Father of adoption, because he's adopted us into His family. He's brought us into His family when we didn't deserve it, when we were unlovable, when our sins had separated us from Him. And He said, "Welcome. Come on in." And He's welcomed us into His family even though we were infected, maybe not with "H" "I" "V," but with "S" "I" "N." We were infected with sin, which most assuredly brings a death far worse than what HIV can bring. God adopted us into His family because He loves us.

Boy, we've learned a lot through this ordeal, and I've found we're not through learning. I imagine there are other things on the horizon that we have yet to learn, but we're gonna make it together, my wife and my children, Isaiah, God, my brothers and sisters in Christ, and those who have supported us and continue to do so. These lessons have given us real opportunity.

When we went to the Arkansas Children's Hospital, they told us, "You're not gonna want to disclose this, because you will lose your friends." (And that's true with a lot of people who are diagnosed with HIV.)

I began to smile when they said that. They said, "Why are you smiling?"

And I said, "You don't know my friends. You see I've got some of the best friends in the world. You don't know who my friends are. And furthermore, if I lose my friends over this, good riddance to bad rubbish."

You know, that's the way God feels. He takes us into His family and, sometimes, when we become children of His, we lose some of our friends. And God says, "Good riddance to bad rubbish. Just go ahead and come into my family. I'll take care of you. I'll sustain you. I'll see you through."

It dawned on me as I was thinking about what I wanted to say today, that Isaiah's story is really why we do the things we do in Guyana anyway. Our business is not necessarily to go down and adopt everybody that we see there, but our business is giving people second chances. The team from West-Ark and the other teams that come down and work with us, that is their number one focus, their number one goal. And we do it in a real interesting way, because we bring people in and we address their physical needs.

We have doctors, like Dr. Word and Dr. Wilson and Dr. Cole, Dr. Fisher and others--just scores of others. I've forgotten some from here that come down and are willing to give their time and to give of themselves to give people a second chance at health. And while that's going on, we're sitting down studying with them and giving them a second chance at eternity. You see, while we're introducing them to Dr. Wilson, Dr. Cole and Dr. Word, we're also introducing them to the Great Physician.

Whether you're involved in medical missions or whether you're involved in any type of mission work, when Jesus said, "Go ye into all the world," really what He was saying was, "I want you to go and be a people of the second chance. Go out and address people's needs." Jesus did that when He came to this earth. In fact, we see several examples of it.

If you've got your Bibles, turn to Mark, chapter 1. Starting in verse 29, "As soon as they left the synagogue they went with James and John to the home of Simon and Andrew. Simon's mother-in-law was in bed with a fever and they told Jesus about her. So He went to her, took her hand and helped her up. The fever left her and she began to wait on them. That evening after sunset, the people brought to Jesus all the sick and demon possessed. The whole town gathered at the door. Jesus healed many who had various diseases. He also drove out many demons, but He would not let the demons speak because they knew who He was."

Then on further down, in verse 40 "A man with leprosy came to Him and begged Him on his knees, 'if You are willing, You can make me clean.'" You know, what this man was really saying was, "If You are willing, You will give me a second chance." Leprosy was a death sentence in the first century, a lot like HIV is today.

I remember when they told me that Isaiah was HIV positive. I was driving down the road. It was my birthday. I'll never forget that day! I was driving down the road by myself. I was over in Tennessee. (I know that's a bad word after yesterday's ballgame.) I was over in Tennessee when the doctor called and said, "Steve I need to talk to you."

I said, "OK."

He asked, "Are you driving?"

I said, "Yes."

He said, "Pull over." He continued, "We've done some tests on Isaiah, and he is HIV positive."

I remember thinking right then, I've been robbed of my son. I'm gonna have him a year or two, and he's gonna be gone. It's a death sentence.

The doctor said to me right then, "Now, Steve, this is not hopeless."

I remember thinking, that's easy for you to say. It's not your son. I have since found out that he is right--it is not hopeless. I've learned a lot about HIV during the last month. I've found out there have been tremendous advances, particularly in pediatric HIV. There are children even Isaiah's age who have suddenly been declared clean. The medicines they give now are powerful and can do incredible things. And so it's not so much a death sentence as it was a few years ago. But everyone in this room knows that when you hear those letters HIV or when you hear that word AIDS, it's serious.

Well, this man here in the first century had leprosy. He had the first century equivalent of HIV because it was a disease that spread panic wherever you went. I never thought for a minute I'd have HIV in my house. Thought that's not gonna happen. We're good Christian people, we're not doing anything wrong. Isaiah didn't do anything wrong. Never dreamed we'd have to deal with it. Boy, when we found out we had it, we were in a panic. My concern was for Isaiah. My concern was for us. Man, what's gonna happen now. Are we going to have to wear gloves all the time? Are we gonna have to...? We were in a panic. And that's what that disease will do. It will cause you to go into a panic.

That's what leprosy was about in the first century. And so this man comes to Jesus and says, "If You're willing, You can make me clean. If You're willing, You can give me a second chance. Please." He's on his knees begging. "Please give me a second chance."

Filled with compassion, Jesus reached out His hand and touched the man. "I am willing," He said. "Be clean." Immediately the leprosy left him and he was cured.

You see, Jesus was a compassionate man when He was here on this earth. We could read here in the Gospels account after account after account of times when Jesus went into communities and touched those who were hurting, and gave them a second chance. Gave them a second chance at life, gave them a second chance at health, and gave them a second chance at their relationship with God. And that was what Jesus was about the whole time He was here. He was a man of the second chance.

Now if we're going to be followers of Jesus, if we are going to be Christ-like, if we are going to be Christians, we have to be a people of the second chance, too. If we're going to be like Him, we've got to be a people of the second chance. And, in fact, I think that is why Jesus told us what He said in Matthew 25.

Open up your Bibles, we're going to spend some time there. Matthew 25, in verse 31 we read here the account of the sheep and the goats. "When the Son of Man comes in His glory and all the angels with Him, He will sit on His throne in heavenly glory. All the nations will be gathered before Him and He will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on His right and the goats on His left. Then the King will say to those on His right, 'Come you who are blessed by my Father. Take your inheritance. The Kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat. I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink. I was a stranger and you invited me in. I needed clothes and you clothed me. I was sick and you looked after me. I was in prison and you came to visit me.' Then the righteous will answer Him, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, and thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in or needing clothes and clothed you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?' The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine you did for me.' Then He will say to those on His left, 'Depart from me you who are cursed into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat. I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink. I was a stranger and you did not invite me in. I needed clothes and you did not clothe me. I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.' They also will answer, 'Lord when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison and did not help you?' He will reply, 'I tell you the truth. Whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.' They will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life."

You see, Jesus wanted us to know that it's important that we be a people of the Second Chance. That we look around in the world we live in and that we look for those that are hurting and those that need help. He didn't ask us to give them great big wonderful things. He just asked us to give them a hand. He asked us to give them a second chance. I suppose that's why James said in James chapter 1, "Pure religion and undefiled before God is this: to visit the widows and orphans in their affliction and to keep oneself unspotted from the world."