I stepped out of the van and the hot desert air wrapped itself around me. We’d spent most of the day exploring Dubai – marveling at Dubai; now we were only about a 45-minute drive from downtown but I felt a whole world away from its opulence. At first glance, there’s nothing out there except the garbage dump. But next to it is a square plot of land bordered by 8-foot cinder-block walls – a small cemetery gifted to the Christian church by the Sheik of Dubai. In the Arabic world land is arguably more precious than money, and in a country that is overwhelmingly Muslim, this truly was a gift. I noticed, as I scanned the rows, that many were too narrow for caskets. Then I began to read headstone markers. One after another, both dates – birth and death – were the same. These were the graves of stillborn babies. I imagined the faces of young couples, migrant workers who couldn’t afford to bring their precious baby back to their homeland but who needed a place to remember. But this place…next to the garbage dump…in the middle of the parched and dry desert. The headstones were beautifully engraved – costing more than some of those workers might make in a year. I thought of baby Madelayne. We were so excited that Blair’s cousin’s due date was just three weeks after ours. After our Aaron was born Layna and Stef came up to visit, burgeoning belly, filled with anticipation and excitement. A day after they arrived back home her water broke. The doctor couldn’t find a heartbeat. A little less than 12 hours later their baby girl was born. The nurse swaddled Madelayne’s tiny body in blankets and made a gentle plaster imprint of her perfectly formed foot. On a cold February morning we made the heartbreaking three-hour trip to sing at Madelayne’s memorial service. And sing we did. The church was overflowing with people who loved Stef and Layna and Madelayne, even though we didn’t get to meet her face to face. And there was a palpable hope in that room. It was a day of unspeakeable sadness, but also of joyful expectation. Death had taken her for now, but not for eternity. There was hope in the desert cemetery that day, too. We prayed – not for the dead, but for those who had buried their own Madelaynes. And I cried desert tears of hope.