It was Sabbath afternoon at the church. Pa La had come with her two grandsons, Doramon, an eight-year-old autistic boy, and Mita, who was five. After the fellowship meal, Pa La came up to me and told me Doramon had disappeared! He had left the church premises and was nowhere to be found. She had driven her motorbike around looking for him, but to no avail. We prayed together under the car park, asking for God’s help in finding the missing boy.
“I’ll take Mita to your house and see if Doramon may have gone there,” I said. “You can keep looking for him. Here, take my cell phone, and I’ll take Christopher’s. That way we can call each other if we find him.”
We drove to Pa La’s house slowly, looking for Doramon all along the way. As we pulled up to their duplex, Doramon’s father was standing outside, his face pale. “Doramon got hit by a vehicle,” he told us. “He’s at the hospital.”
The words struck me like a brick. I called Pa La to give her the news. She told me her motorcycle tire had gone flat partway home, and she was getting it patched. As soon as it was fixed, she would go to the hospital.
As we talked with Doramon’s father, a truck pulled up, and out came Doramon and his grandfather! Doramon’s face was bandaged. He clutched his father and cried. I was so relieved he wasn’t more badly hurt! Quickly, I called Pa La and told her to come home.
That afternoon as I spent about two hours driving members back to their homes, I thought of Pa La and Doramon. Pa La is still a relatively new interest, and she and her family are still Buddhist. In the Buddhist worldview, when something bad happens, it is a sign that you have been doing wrong. Doramon had run away and gotten hurt while Pa La was in our church. How would she and her family interpret this? I cried out to God, “Lord, You said that all things work together for good for those who love You. Pa La is just beginning to love You. Please make even this accident turn out for good!”
A few days later, Pa La came to our house for a visit. There was excitement in her face. She reminded me that in the kids’ Sabbath School that week, I had taught Jesus’ parable of the lost lamb and how the shepherd had searched for it and found it. “Doramon was the lost lamb, and Jesus found him!” she exclaimed. She had taken the craft we made in Sabbath school that morning that said something like “God watches over us,” and hung it up by Doramon’s bed as he slept. Instead of considering the accident a bad omen, she felt Jesus had been the Good Shepherd watching over her runaway lamb.
Pa La told me the details of Doramon’s accident. He had been walking home when a vehicle struck him. He was bleeding and crying when a stranger put him on her motorbike and took him to the hospital. Being autistic, he wasn’t able to identify himself at the hospital. But, amazingly, someone recognized him. They pulled up his records and called his grandfather.
No, it wasn’t coincidence. God sent a stranger to help Doramon and helped the hospital staff member recognize him. And I don’t think it was coincidence that the parable of the lost lamb was the Sabbath School story for that week. God worked out every detail in His perfect wisdom.
Since the accident, Doramon has been less naughty and more cooperative and verbal. Pa La continues to come and help out in the church kitchen, and her faith in God continues to grow.
In all things, God works for the good of those who love Him, even when we don’t see how it could be!
