The holidays had arrived and Richmond was in the Christmas spirit.

Sidewalks bustled with people passing one another with more smiles, even exchanging greetings not usually offered to strangers. Good cheer hung in the air. Even the Downtown business district, filled with professionals dressed in formal look-alike suits and skirts, found it hard to ignore the festive mood. It was as if the smells coming from grandma's kitchen, aromas of her holiday cooking, now wafted through the streets.

Offices joined in the festive mood with various displays of good cheer.

Wreaths on office doors. Office parties. Fellow workers exchanging gifts. Outside, even the modern high-rise buildings that crowded the Downtown, usually indistinguishable concrete, steel, and glass structures, now glowed with single strands of white lights running along their corners from street to roofline, then along the top. The effect created the illusion of a Downtown filled with candles, the display even sending warm Holiday Greetings to travelers driving past the city along the outlying interstate.

That afternoon, while the sky turned an overcast grey, a weathered SUV traveled that same interstate. Approaching Richmond from the south, the SUV crested a hill. As it did, the Downtown candlelit skyline suddenly loomed on the horizon. For the vehicle’s occupants, a mother and father and their two grade-school children, the cheery spectacle did little to boost their spirits. Their third child, an eleven-year-old boy, rode in the ambulance directly to their front. The family had followed the ambulance for the past two hours, starting from their hometown in rural Virginia. The ambulance was headed to the Richmond Children’s Hospital, where their son was returning, his condition relapsed with his leukemia no longer in remission.

For the family, this Christmas was a reminder of another Christmas five years earlier, when their son was first diagnosed. He had been a first grader at the time when they first heard what every parent fears… the dark pronouncement that their child has cancer. That same specter now overshadowed this Christmas. Except this time, the news was even more dire. The leukemia’s return was far more aggressive, the doctors explained. Their son's only hope, if he was to survive long into the New Year, was a bone marrow transplant.

Then promising news just two days ago. The International Donor Bank found a perfect donor match in their system. Even now, the donor was being contacted to arrange for the transplant procedure. For the parents, it was an answer to prayer, an offer of hope. Spying the spectacle of downtown lights, the mother turned to check on her two younger children seated in the back, where they occupied themselves with a video game. While she knew they understood their brother was sick, still she knew they deserved a fun Christmas too. But how that might happen now, as the family made their way to the Children’s Hospital, she wasn’t sure. She turned to study her husband who drove, reached over, and squeezed his shoulder. It was a gesture that said they were in this together. They exchanged a look that needed no words. All they could do, they knew, was to face this Christmas with as much faith as could be mustered, knowing their only hope was a modern-day miracle…

Meanwhile, inside the Cancer Ward at the Children’s Hospital, a resident pediatric oncologist frowned as she read the message just handed her by the head nurse. It was an email that had come in from the International Donor Bank. The message was a heart-stopper. The donor, who had initially agreed to the transplant, had a change of heart and now no longer wanted to go through with the procedure. No reason given. None required. Donors were given complete anonymity and confidentiality about their decision whether to donate. The resident doctor knew that. She knew too that the young boy the email pertained to was already on his way to the hospital.

She sighed. The news would be devastating to the family who soon would be arriving. The resident already was aware of the critical stage of the boy’s leukemia. She shook her head as she headed to another child patient’s room. It was the worst Christmas present she could imagine parents receiving. Once again, it made her question how a caring God could allow the heartbreak that she, as a doctor, so often witnessed here on the ward. News like this was a reminder that she would never reconcile how a loving God allowed such needless suffering. It was what gave her purpose. The loss of her own little brother years earlier had motivated her to pursue medicine, specifically oncology. Someone had to defend and fight for these innocent children suffering. She was determined it would be herself, with or without God’s help…

Later that afternoon, a man dressed in flowing robes like those worn in the Middle East strode down the streets of Downtown Richmond. He stood a head taller than most people he passed. Even his attire was in stark contrast to the other pedestrians bundled in winter clothes. Still, no one seemed to take notice of him. Reaching a modern multi-storied hospital, he stopped and gazed upwards, fixing his eyes on a certain window. For a long moment he gazed thoughtfully. Finally, giving a satisfied nod, he turned his attention back to the street.

At the moment, he was early for his rendezvous. Looking around, he decided to continue walking. It was a good time to get acquainted with the city. Up ahead was a street vendor. As he approached the vendor’s cart, he heard the vendor hawking to passersby, “Get your Christmas ornaments imported from around the world!” He walked over to get a closer look. There was an assortment of ornaments dangling from the cart. Clearly mass-produced. Some were factory-painted plastic ornaments, others made of trinket gold and silver. They dangled from a wire running from post to post across the cart’s front. One ornament caught his attention. It was an intricate Christmas star made of cheap gold metal, meant to adorn the top of a Christmas tree.

Seeing the tall stranger eyeing the star, the vendor pitched, “Hand-crafted in the Holy Land. Home of the first Christmas.” Could he wrap it up for him, the vendor asked? The robed stranger shook his head no. The star he was looking for—he gestured solemnly towards the sky—was up there. With a confused shrug at the stranger’s response, the vendor turned his attention to more promising prospects walking past, again hawking, “Get your Christmas ornaments here! Imported from around the world!”

He continued down the street. Now realizing he was famished after the great distance he had traveled to get there, he wondered if he might find a restaurant serving Persian fare. Just then, his keen nostrils picked up the aroma of roasted lamb. Following the source, he spied a food truck ahead advertising lamb kabobs. The aroma carried him back to the food bazaars of his home country. A smile broke across his face for the first time that day as he headed for the truck. As soon as he satisfied his hunger, he assured himself, he would turn his attention back to the reason he had come to Richmond, a mission he knew would require all his wits to succeed.

This time, he vowed, he would not fail. Not when the outcome determined another young boy’s future. A boy whose life, even now, hung in the balance…