Yesterday was our "Sabbath" and as always, it was wonderful to rest and spend time with our family and the Lord. This has been a difficult week for a lot of reasons...but as we set this time apart to pray and reflect on the goodness of the Lord, we find refreshment and strength to start again this week.

Yesterday morning two nurses from the Puesto de Salud (the government clinic here in town) knocked at our gate asking for help with twins that were born early Tuesday morning up in one of the villages. We have been helping them prenatally and with milk for the one year old sister. It seems that mom gave birth in the morning but the placenta did not descend afterward and 12 hours later she died. Her husband is away working on the coast leaving grandma to care for all their children and now these twin babies who seem amazingly, very healthy. It is hard to believe that they did not seek help when mom was hemorrhaging but there is no 911 here and I am sure the grandma had no way of calling for someone to help, nor the means to pay for a rented car to come down to Canilla where someone could have helped them. Senseless...

Then in the afternoon, we received a call from our friend Victor who runs the drug and alcohol rehab center in Quiche. One of the young men who lived there for almost a year...a young man who had recovered from alcohol addiction and whose diabetes had come under control, who had accepted Jesus as his Savior and who had begun to live and work and recuperate...was dead. He started drinking again a week ago and although Victor had chased him down and pleaded with him to return on two different occasions, he did not. He said he didn't want to live. They found him dead on the street yesterday and the autopsy showed that he died of intoxication. Senseless...

Sunday in clinic Armondo and I spent over an hour talking with a woman who has 11 children and is beaten almost daily by her husband. I have known her for several years and never seen her smile. By law here in Guatemala, if she leaves, she will loose the right to her home and she will be destined to live on the street with her 11 children. So she continues to live with the fear that this man may kill her or one of her children. Senseless...

I could go on and on telling stories of the suffering and pain that we are faced with every single day. The weak words of encouragement and the little bit of food or medicine that we offer seem so inadequate in the face of such huge need. But prayers offered up to the Creator of the Universe, to the only One who can bring change...in this we trust that true change can come. In Him we trust that hearts can be healed and pain be relieved...because we know and we rest in the fact that God is a righteous judge who sees and understands. And as I laid all of these - and other situations before the Lord in prayer, I could almost hear Him say, "Be still...and know that I am God." (Psalm 46:10) We trust that somehow out of all of these "senseless" situations, that He will be exalted, that He will change "mourning into dancing."