Beginning to see the Need- The Road to Church Planting- Part 3

If you haven’t read parts 1 & 2 of our church planting story, you can catch up here and here.As I mentioned in part 2, appropriately titled, “I Hate Houston,” Houston and I did not get off to a good start . All I could associate it with was my grandmother’s cancer treatments and my newborn son’s hospital stays and surgery. Oh, and I’d been to Astroworld as a kid, which was fun, but it wasn’t even there anymore!During Landon’s hospital stay for his surgery, we met a couple whose daughter also had biliary atresia. She was exactly one week older than Landon and had the same surgery as he did exactly one week before he did. It was also their first child and they, like us, were scared to death. We became instant friends with them since we had something very important in common- our newborn babies had a disease that could be treated- but not cured, short of a liver transplant.Of course, in the early days of our relationship with them, we were both trying to learn everything about this new disease that no one has ever heard of unless they’re affected by it. However, as the weeks went on, Landon got better but their baby stayed sick. Each time we would go to Houston for a check-up (which was weekly in the beginning) we would see them, as they were usually still inpatient with their sweet baby. We began to see that yes, we had true hurt from Landon’s diagnosis, but there were literally thousands of parents coming to this same hospital every day with illnesses much worse than his. We tried to minister to them in the best ways we knew how, although we were so new at this whole world that we previously didn’t know existed. A children’s hospital is definitely an unequivocal paradox- a place of hurt, but also a place of hope.As we began to navigate this new part of our lives with trepidation, unbeknownst to me, God was beginning to open my husband’s eyes to a mission field. You see, Texas Children’s Hospital is only one of fifty-four medical institutions packed together in a few square miles. According to texasmedicalcenter.org, there are 7.1 million patient visits in a single year, and 16,000 of those are from international patients. (For reference, my hometown isn’t even 16,000 people!) It is the largest- and one of the most highly sought after- conglomeration of medical facilities in the world.

A view of the skyline of the TMC, taken by our friend Stan Kwan.
Over the next several months, we were in and out of Houston a lot. Although I didn’t love Houston yet, God was beginning to work in my heart so that I at least didn’t hate it.….to be continued
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Beginning to see the Need- The Road to Church Planting- Part 3

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