It is hot again. The winds have changed in the last week and the dust blows continously. We have had no rain now since September. And the widows are beginning to come again, asking for food. Our nutrition program is filling up. Men are trying to earn cash by cutting sugar cane on the "coast". It is exhausting work, swinging a machete 12 hours a day in 100 degree weather. Women are left to care for children alone, often with little food and no money. Tuesday, Fransisca came into the clinic in Chiminisijuan with her 1 year old, sick and weighing just 12 pounds. Mom is 8 months pregnant with twins. She will need to go to the hospital to have these babies but her husband is gone and there is no one to care for the one year old. When I told her that there were 2 babies, big tears rolled down her face....the desperation so profound. We loaded her up with as much food as she could carry and medicine for the little one and sent her on her way with a prayer that Jesus would give her the strength that she needs.

There are so many like her - in need and desperate. What we have to give is so little. But we are learning the power of prayer because we know that without Jesus, the cycle can not be broken. Only He can bring healing. Only He can make the wrong things right. Only He can...
comfort all who mourn,
and provide for those who grieve in Zion—
to bestow on them a crown of beauty for ashes
the oil of joy instead of mourning,
and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. Isaiah 61:2-3