Here's an entry that I wrote about him in my journal once back in the states several months later all by myself in a secluded cabin in Gatlinburg on Sept 25, 2005.
Sept 25 , 2005
I’ve typed like an idiot today! Typed with a ferocious fury, I know my time is short, I’ll HAVE to leave this place soon! Wow ~ it was incredibly wonderful to get to come here. And such a surprise! But I have to leave so soon! It was all I could do to get out this morning to go to church … for I felt a great need to hear God – and was in the midst of an intense moment! - and I knew that the getting up to get made-up, and all the taking-off for the putting-on, plus the drive, the time, the distractions of stops on the way back to pick up things ……… I didn’t want to miss a moment, but felt like I was missing more than a lot if I left. So, I cried, with tears streaming off the make-up just as quickly as I was putting it on: Lord, do YOU want me to go ??? … or to stay????? Asking Him, because I knew that He knew that it was Him that I was seeking and Him that I was wanting to hear. Either way, I wanted only to obey His will. I honestly felt that He would be happy with me whichever I did ----- but the convicted Church-of-Christ girl that was raised in me had me go. I went. ..,. and was greatly blessed in going. Though much time was spent between leaving the cabin and my return. I finally returned - after church and Books Warehouse and Wal-Greens – and immediately began typing like a maniac … I didn’t even stop to eat. I hadn’t had either breakfast or lunch, but my hunger for the moment was HIM and not food! It was about 7:30 that night before I stopped to fix a bite. But even then, I typed while I ate. Funny, as I walked the stairs down to the kitchen and back up again; I noticed out my window a man in a house across from me – seeming to be watching me through the glass. I’m not sure if he really was or not or if he even saw me, but I thought that if he was – and if he had been watching me in my fury of tapping these keys for hours, surely he must think that I’m a writer. And if I ran into him and he asked me if a was one, I thought: I’d tell him, “Yes! Yes, I am.” … and grin inside. It might not be the kind of writer that he was thinking … but yes, I’m a writer - because I sure do write a lot!!!!!!!! I figure that surely must qualify!
Just now, as I was closing all of the programs on my computer down, because it’s late; already 12:30 … technically, already Sept 26th … but I’ve still dated this yesterday; I saw again the hand that reaches out to mine …… asking for me to fill it! For I have my brown-shirted black African friend pasted on my computer as my screen's background, so his picture is constantly before me. All day long in my work here, I see him … reaching out to me!!!! I LOVE that child!!!! … and I WANT to feed him!!!! I want to put something in his hand!!! I want to FILL it!!!!! Oh, he’s so beautiful to me! Wonder where he is tonight? I somehow know that wherever he is, his hand still reaches out to mine!!!! … as my heart reaches out for his!
There are others in the picture - in the scene that spreads across my screen. One boy stands close to him in the very front on his right; he’s what we would call: in-his-face! He’s just that close!!!! He’s wearing a very worn and holey shirt, and just staring hard at the boy who’s reaching out to me. I wonder why he's so intent in his stare?
Wait! Wait! Wait!! - I can’t continue like this - I have to give the boy a name. He needs a name! I can’t keep calling him my “brown-shirted black African boy!” He has to have a name! Oh Lord, what shall I call him? What is his name? Lead me to his name. Help me to find it....................................
..................Ah! He now has a name! I have found his name: Yapheh! His name is Yapheh! His name is Beautiful! .. because he’s beautiful to me! Yapheh – fair, handsome, beautiful – he’s all three!
As I looked up the word, for I wanted to call him Beautiful, in the Hebrew – in the Strong’s Lexicon; I was expecting to see the word Tov. Tov is “good” in the Scriptures that talk of God creating in Genesis 1 and He calls it good. Yet, it’s also translated beautiful in other Scriptures. So this is the word that I thought that I would see, I was just double-checking, verifying before I labeled him though. And in doing so, I typed in the word: Beautiful – and my search displayed (to my surprise): Yapheh. Never heard of it! So I looked to see where God’s used it in Scripture. Look what I found: “And he sent, and brought him in. Now he [was] ruddy, [and] withal of a beautiful countenance, and goodly to look to. And the LORD said, Arise, anoint him: for this [is] he.” - 1Sa 16:12 And I just felt a compelling, you know? I felt He was telling me to, “Go ahead . Anoint him with this name.” So, I did; he can considered himself anointed. Yapheh, it is! Beautiful! … And with his name, and blessed in such a way as with this Scripture (I do feel God led me!!! I had asked Him to!) … it causes me to wonder in my heart (now wearing such a name) just who God’s anointed him to be??
Already a bit awed with wonder at his name and the verse, my eyes were drawn to another verse that carries this same Hebrew word. I can’t even begin to type the feel I felt of the stirring that stirred within me when I saw it. It seems to be foretelling a marvelous thing!!!! I’m so awed at God’s wonders!!! Here is the Scripture that my eyes fell upon that captured and held my focus and my attention: “He [God] has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end.” - Ecc. 3:11
WOW!!!!!! God makes everything beautiful “in its time!!!” Everything includes everything, no? Let’s reword it here: God makes Yapheh beautiful in it’s time!!! God makes ‘Beautiful’ beautiful in it’s time!!! God makes Yapheh yapheh in his time!!!! Wonder what that time will be? Wonder at the beauty that awaits us? Wonder what Yapheh will look like? Yapheh’s eternity that God has set in his heart … already shows in the picture as he reaches out for it!!! And Yapheh cannot fathom what God is doing from beginning to end in him. I long to see it! I thank You, Lord, for the name: Yapheh!
In the middle between Yapheh and the one staring so intently at this face is a boy that smiles with his head behind yet between them. Smiling at the camera … and me who is clicking it.
There’s a boy to the far right, shirt left opened a little bit far before the first button is buttoned to hold it shut. This boy stands with his hand on his hip, looking as if to say, “What?”
Two others hold their hands high in the back … not appearing so much as to wave, but looking as if they are wanting you not to miss them but to see them! We all want somebody to see us, don’t we, Lord? You see them! You are the Lord that sees!
There’s one girl on the far left that stares too at Yapheh! Staring, too, intently at his face … as if thinking: Oh my goodness, you!!!!! … in awe at what’s about to happen to him. I am too …… for I keep finding myself staring intently at his face as they do!!!! Funny! I didn’t notice till now that they are doing what I keep doing.
Now the girl in the very front, standing next to the female-starer is sticking out her tongue with all her might. Face frozen in an awful look, as the tongue protruding pulls her brows to furrow and her eyes to squint. She looks like she’s being mean … but surely not! And it looks as if her tongue is aimed at the one taking the shot of them – need I remind you that that person is yours truly!?!
And then … a sea of more beautiful faces. Sear them on my heart, Lord! Make me love them! Make them mine! Spiritually so. I want to love them enough to not be able to forget to pray for them. I want to love them enough to not be able to not pray for them. …. So I’ll know that they have a someone in “Someone’s praying me through … it might be my mother, it might be my dad, it might be an old friend I forgot I had ….!” Let me be their someone! And make them ALL beautiful – in their time!!!!
Hmmm... It's been 4 1/2 years. I'm still impressed! Those girls and guys are still making an impression on me. It's obvious by now that God answered my prayer. He hasn't let me forget or dried up my love for them. They are seared on my heart. I love them immensely!
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