Our testimony: King and Faye at Malaya's life commemoration service

Malaya Testimony - King and Faye from King Faye Sacramento on Vimeo.
Here is a transcript:
(King)--Wow...We feel loved. First of all, thank you for all of you for coming today. It means so much that even though you were never able to fully know our precious baby girl that you would come to commemorate her life with us. We find some comfort in your presence and willingness to take time out of your lives to mourn with us.
(Faye)--I have always wanted to be a mom. Maybe it’s partly because I have a wonderful mom who has shown me nothing but love. When I found out that I was going to have a baby I really believed that God was really granting a dream of mine to come true.
We found out that we were pregnant in August of last year. When I took a pregnancy test I think I said “Oh my gosh” at least 17 times until I finally realized how real this was. There was a life living inside of me. This was so amazing to me. I waited for King to come home and I told him to get the laptop ready so that we could watch a show online. Little did he know that I had taken a picture of myself and the positive pregnancy test and put it on the wallpaper of the laptop and that’s how I was going to tell him that we were going to have a baby. I wanted to surprise him and watch his reaction. But instead of saying “Oh my gosh” like me, he said “Oh no”, which wasn’t the reaction I was expecting. After talking it over he admitted that he was caught off guard, but was truly happy that we were going to have a kid.
I had a very hard first trimester. The second and third trimesters were a lot easier compared to the first. In the first few months, I had pretty bad morning sickness that caused tiredness and nausea that lasted all day and night. It was really hard for me to go through a grocery store because my sense of smell was so heightened that I would dry heave if I didn’t like the smell. I could literally smell the dog food two aisles away. I found it difficult sometimes to drive and I was still teaching my English as a Second Language classes in Fullerton. When I couldn’t take it anymore I told the Lord and He made a way for me. I decided to stop teaching two of my classes. Through God’s goodness, He provided a miracle financially for us through one of my employers so we were able to get by with me staying home most of the time.
(King)--We decided early on that we were going to wait to find out the gender of the baby. Also, we wanted to bring this baby in naturally. And this meant choosing to have the baby with a midwife who don’t give pitocin or epidurals. And Faye needs to eat healthy and exercise--the eating part, which Faye did and the exercising part, which I had to force her to do. . We even wanted to have a water birth at home in Faye’s parent’s big tub. We found South Coast Midwifery, just down the street from here, and were really happy with all the staff there and the care that they gave.
Everyone we told was so happy for us. For us, it would be our first child. For both Faye’s parents and my dad, this would be their first grandchild. For our siblings, this would be the first niece or nephew. For Nanay, Faye’s grandma, this would be her first great-grandchild. Oh how joyful we all were, in grateful anticipation of this growing baby inside of Faye.
(Faye)--Around 21 weeks or so I could feel her moving. She kicked and moved around so beautifully. I would just smile sometimes in the middle of the night if I felt her uppercuts or her roundhouse kicks. King would get so excited whenever he felt her kicking. And I would get choked up sometimes when King would talk to her through my belly and tell her how much he loved her. We told each other that with God’s help, we were going to be good parents. We were floating on cloud nine knowing what a gift we had received.
Oh, how I wish we could go back to those days of bliss and not have to be here, commemorating her life that was but a whisper.
(King)--This past month we found out that our baby was sick. Through the results of the ultrasounds the doctors said that she had anencephaly which is a head abnormality where the skull didn’t fully form in the back. Also, she had ectopic cordis which means that her heart was outside of the chest cavity. Both conditions are fatal. We were both devastated and our hearts were broken. When she was born we found out that the anencephaly and the heart conditions were caused by amniotic band syndrome, which is a rupture of the amniotic sac. In our case, this syndrome caused bands to connect to Malaya’s face, heart, and umbilical cord which pulled them out of place. Also, the placenta was connected to her face. Although the doctors assured us that this was not genetic, but an accident, the fact that this happened to our little girl still hurt us and has caused indescribable pain.
We have spent seven months with Baby Malaya in Faye’s tummy and we finally met her last Friday. She was the most beautiful baby girl that I’ve ever seen. There are moments that I know I will never have with her. I didn’t hear her cry. There won’t be any sleepless nights. There won’t be midnight feedings or changing diapers--moments that some might complain about or take for granted. I won’t be able to see her grow up, but I’m grateful that I spent time with her at the hospital and knew my little girl. I held her hand. I held her close to me while I slept. I spoke to her of how much I love her and how much I’ll miss her. I know we’ll see her again. And she’s probably spending so much time with her grandma, my mom, who went to be with the Lord in 2004.
(Faye)--These past few days have felt so empty. My shirts that used to be tight around the belly, have loosened. I no longer am awakened by her kicks. There is no other soul living inside of me. There’s no longer the three of us. King and I sleep alone again. I feel like my heart has been torn to shreds.
I don’t wish this pain on anyone. King and I have asked each other why this would happen to us. We tell ourselves that we would have made awesome parents. We can’t answer any of these questions. We will simply never know why this happened to us no matter how we try to rationalize and analyze things. God's ways are truly higher than ours.
When I was pregnant with her, I used talk to her and say that the only thing I wanted for her life was for her to know God. To truly know His love and, in turn, love Him back with everything that she was. I said to her that I didn’t care what she became when she grew up. I didn’t care if she made a lot of money. I just wanted her to have a real relationship with Jesus. I remember several times where I would cry out to the Lord for this.
God answered my prayer, but not in the way that I thought He would. I thought I would see her living out the answer on this earth. Instead, she is with God now, experiencing the glory of everlasting life. She knows Him in ways that I can only begin to imagine. Praise God.
What was true about God before this happened is still true about Him today even through this unspeakable pain. God doesn’t change. He is still the same yesterday, today, and forever.
And we are still going to love God and give Him our lives through all of this. We are still gonna go serve Him as missionaries in Indonesia. We are not going to turn our backs to Him and be bitter for what happened to us. Who else can we turn to? How can we walk away from what and who we know to be so true? Our hope is in God. He is our strength. Our rock in whom we trust. He is the one carrying us.
I was crying before the Lord about this whole thing before we went to the hospital. Let me tell you what He impressed upon my heart. I believe that He was saying that she is in His embrace, and King and I are in His embrace. In this way, we are all together and will be forever together wrapped in God’s arms.
(King)--Thank the Lord that Malaya never knew suffering or pain. Praise God that she never had to deal with the ugliness of sin. Thank God that she never had her heart broken.
We hope that when you see the pictures in the slide show, that you’ll be able to see her as beautiful just as we do. We know that she looked different from other babies, but our God is a god who has fearfully and wonderfully made her. We want to believe that our baby’s heart was outside of her chest because she just had so much love to give that it couldn’t be contained.
We want her life, though it was but a few months in Faye’s womb, to never be forgotten. Please don’t forget her. It is our prayer that through her life, Jesus would be glorified…that you would grow closer to the God that holds her even now.
Her name truly has a deeper significance now than when we first thought of it. Malaya means “freedom” in Tagalog. Charis means “grace” in Greek. She is truly freely living in the graces of Heaven.
Malaya Charis, we will see you and be with you at home in Heaven someday. We miss you and wish we would have been able to have more time with you. Just wait for us over there, our dear, special baby girl. Heaven is a much more wonderful place because of you. We love you very much.
God gives. God takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. May the Lord receive all the glory through our precious daughter.

Malaya's Life Commemoration Service and Video

Last night we had Malaya's Life Commemoration service at Woodbridge Community Church.
See below for the order of the program.

Before the service, King and I prayed that God would use our baby's life to be an instrument of the truth of Jesus to touch people's lives. We really wanted people to be introduced to our precious baby girl and have her life give honor to God. King had told me the night before that he hoped that God would be glorified. I told him that He would be because that's what we wanted. And boy, did we see Him doing His thing! Gosh, last night was just so beautiful.

I simply whispered a one line prayer, "God please give me strength" and He answered. I'm sure others were praying the same for King and me. It was supernatural, the strength that He gave us. I'm not one to hold back tears, but for some reason most of the time my eyes were fairly dry. God sustained me and I only used four tissues throughout the whole night.

When Pastor Ali started praying I knew that that night something special was going to happen. Somehow, I knew that there was no way that anyone could leave without being changed. I knew I, myself, would be transformed forever.

The songs that my brother, Joe, led were just great and the other friends that played made the music so rich. Singing to God, and about God, was exactly what I needed to do. I sang out even when my throat hurt.

Jeff, King's brother, did a good job in reading Psalm 139. God reminded me that He is the one who knit her together in my womb and that I should really praise Him for she was fearfully and wonderfully made.

Godfrey expounded on what Jeff read. King and I were blown away because of how honestly he talked about death. There was no morbidity about it. Instead, I felt my feelings of despair disperse. He reminded all of us that death has lost it's sting because of the hope we have received through the death and resurrection of Jesus. He encouraged those listening to put their faith in God. Hopefully he has his notes so that I can post it on here.

Delia sang with such authority and power. I have heard and sang "Great is Thy Faithfulness" countless times, but while she sang, I could literally feel my spirit just rise within me and fill my chest with hope. Hope that would carry me throughout the rest of the night. Girl got pipes...and heart.

Pastor Vince (King's uncle) talked about lament and grief. He said that we have been taught by our culture to do whatever it takes to stop lamenting or "comfort" people so that they'll stop crying. As followers of Jesus we should be experts at grieving and be comfortable with shedding our tears to God and to each other. Again, he pointed people toward knowing and trusting in Jesus, our only true consolation and the One who weeps with us.

When we went up to speak, both King and I took our first look at who was able to come and, no joke, there were more than 300 people there: family, friends, co-workers, acquaintances, and people we have never met before. The first things that came out of both of our mouths were "Wow...". My heart was moved. Our little Malaya brought together a whole bunch of people that loved us and her. Again, it was incredible the strength that God gave both of us to share our story of her in our lives. I will post what we said in another entry.

Rommel did an awesome job with the slide show. Tammy, our photographer, captured the moments we had with her so well. Her fingers, toes, beautiful head, and body were shown. In our eyes, she is perfect and it was heartwarming to hear people agree with us and say how beautiful she is. We just uploaded the video to Vimeo, so here it is:


Malaya Charis Sacramento - Glory Baby from King Faye Sacramento on Vimeo.

Dear friends and family came up to lay hands on us while Pastor Vince, Doc Mike, Leo, and Pastor Frank prayed over us. We were reminded of the faithfulness of God who has been and will be all sufficient to walk ahead. Also, God showed us that we are not alone. He won't leave us and the community has shown their commitment to us as well.

"Blessed be Your Name" was a song that brought great comfort to King and me when King's mom went to be with Jesus in 2004. I thought of them playing together in Heaven. Bless His name, indeed.

Pastor Jonathan closed us out and in his prayer he thanked God for how our daughter is in the arms of God in Heaven...our real Home. What hope...

The love that we received was perfect. So many people were willing to help out: decorating, helping with the program and encouragement cards, bringing food, etc. King and I have never hugged so many people at one time in our lives. The hugs were even better than those received at our wedding. The hugs and kisses that we were given were such a comfort and it was as if the Lord was using everyone to be His arms. I made sure to look into the eyes of each person that came to embrace me and told them thank you and that I loved them. I don't want to take anyone for granted anymore. Several were tear filled as they came up to us and those tears and tender eyes possibly spoke more compassion than their words could. Also, some people gave us love gifts, flowers, and cards that we have been reading and re-reading all day today.

I was SO proud of my baby afterward. I told King as we were driving away from the church that she is just so wonderful. She, though no one was able to meet her personally, was able to touch the hearts of so many people: those able to make it to the service, those who were with us there in prayer, friends, family, and even total strangers. Oh, my darling Malaya, we are still very sad that you're not here, but you have shown us how amazing you are!

God, you were SO there. Your presence was SO real. Continue to have Your way in all our lives.

Malaya's Life Commemoration--order of service

Prelude---Godfrey Catanus

Opening Prayer---Pastor Ali Aguarino

Praise and Worship---Joe Abesamis, Godfrey Catanus, Homer Dulu, Andrew Arellano, Patricia Ferido

I Will Lift My Eyes
Bring the Rain
When the Tears Fall

Scripture---Psalm 139---Jeffrey Sacramento

Message---Pastor Godfrey Catanus

Special Song---Great is Thy Faithfulness---Delia King

Message---Pastor Vince Arnaldo

Worship---Joe Abesamis and team

Never Let Go
It is Well

Testimony---King & Faye Sacramento

Slideshow---made by Rommel Andal

Pray over King & Faye---Those who prayed---Pastor Vince Arnaldo, Dr. Michael Co, Leo Balayon, Pastor Frank Winans // Friends and family surrounded us and laid hands on us

Closing Song---Blessed be Your Name

Closing Prayer---Pastor Jonathan Mortiz