best laid plans

I hadn't talked about it on here, but I'd verbally told Raul and even mentioned it to Kennedy even as recent as yesterday that at the end of the summer, I was going to buy a new phone. I love Nokias...well, rephrase that...I love old Nokias. So dependable. But the new ones, at least to me, are more like computers. They get slow, they restart themselves (often when I'm in the middle of writing a text message), and mine has been dropped several times, so it's starting to look like it's been through a war. So I was going to buy a new one when we got back to school.

Then today, it was lost/stolen. Why do I say both? Because I honestly can't remember what happened. What I figure is that I left it behind at the restaurant by our school where Raul and I had lunch...left it and didn't realize it til 2 hours later when we were at home. It took me that long to realize it was missing. Pathetic, I know. But when I did realize it, I panicked. Raul called my number and it gave a Chinese voice that said basically my phone was no longer in service. Someone found my phone, took out the sim card, and took the phone itself. Oldest story in the world if you live in China, and not uncommon at all. Aaaaaaargh. I was a wreck. Cried my eyes out.

But then this is the cool part. His peace completely washed over me as I remembered we had our friend Kim's old sim card that she left to us when she left China, along with Raul's old phone. That phone has also been through a war, but I remembered I also had my old Nokia...kept just in case, though I thought it was having problems with the sound. We popped the sim card in my old Nokia and, after we put money on the card at China Mobile, TA DA! I had a new phone! Though this solved an immediate prayer, there's still the issue of missing phone numbers, particularly of old students that I keep in touch with...NICF friends are no problem to get numbers for. So that will be a lot of mafan for me this summer. But you know what, I still praise Him for answering my prayer so quickly. I couldn't afford to buy a phone right now, but there's no way I could get through the summer without one. And goodness....He provided! I'm just...I'm so in awe of Him right now.

On top of all this, Britt called this morning...discouraged, confused about the status of her delivery, and just wanting to have her baby as soon as possible...though the doctors were not so ready (they wanted more money, we're convinced). But then apparently an hour after I talked to her...her water broke, He did a miracle, and Britt delivered a baby girl tonight!

I'll post photos tomorrow of our teachers' dinner tonight and hopefully of the new baby after we see it tomorrow evening. Be so much blessed, y'all. And be reminded that He works not only in the big things, but also in the tiny things.