Where babies come from

The Orange-Beaked Thieves

On the porch, swaddled in muslin, a baby wailed. Tom Brown and his wife Cara looked at each other in surprise. They’d prayed and prayed—they’d prayed so much that it had become more superstition than faith, and now here it was, a baby. Tom pointed to the lawn where a white-breasted stork stabbed at the ground with a sharp orange beak.

Cara picked up the child, hugged it, and cried tears of joy.

Tom stepped back inside, and when he’d returned, he was carrying a can of sardines, which he placed before the stork as if he were presenting a tribute to a king.

The bird snatched the can and devoured its contents, then flew away. The Browns praised God as they watched the stork sail through the sky and up through the clouds, and when the bird was out of sight, they returned to their home. And where just moments before their family was two, now they were three.

“We have a baby,” said Cara in disbelief.

“We have a baby,” said Tom, smiling at his lovely wife.

“Dear heavenly Father, thank you for this blessing.”

“Amen.”

Years went by, and the Browns showered their baby with love and kindness. They bought her expensive clothing, took her to Paris, Rome, and London, and when she was old enough for school, they paid the money to send her to private. They wanted only the best for their little girl.

But Tom and Cara wanted their daughter to grow up morally sound, so they taught her to give to those less fortunate, encouraging her to write to their sponsor child, Eric John, in Tanzania.

“He doesn’t have what we have, dear,” Cara told their girl.

“He’s Black like me?” said their daughter.

“Yes, he’s Black like you—but you’re American. We have much more than they have.”

They were a blessed family, and the days were pleasant. But then their baby grew up, and one day at school, she met a boy who asked her if she wanted to try something fun, and she did, and so they did. She started to feel funny, her belly grew, and eventually, the doctor confirmed their worst fear: Their little baby was going to have a baby of her own.

The Browns were devastated—this would not do! Their daughter’s future would be ruined; she would never become a lawyer like her father or a judge like her mother. So they locked her in her room. They knelt over her bed and cried as if she’d taken her own life—they believed, in a way, that she had.

In the end, their tears were unnecessary, for on the very day that baby came into this world, crying for his mother’s milk, the Browns had heard a scratching sound coming from their front porch. Tom went to investigate, and when he pulled open the front door, there before him was that same stork, walking around on orange stilt legs, aerating the front lawn. Tom gasped.

“Cara, come here! Quick!”

Cara ran out and stood beside her husband. “The stork? But we can’t take care of another baby…”

But to their relief, lying at their feet was only an empty sheet of muslin.

“What does it mean?” asked Tom.

Cara hurried inside, returning with the newborn baby in her arms.

A tormented scream came from within the house, but Cara did not falter; she swaddled the child in the muslin and then placed him at the orange feet of their King.

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