Time Marches On...

Have you ever just sat back and wondered why the world doesn't stop when someone is in such horrendous pain?? I have, just this week in fact.

One of our dear employees passed away this week, leaving behind 4 children ages 4 to 14 and a wife who doesn't have a clue what she'll do without him as she raises her children in this country that is so difficult. I don't remember another time in my life when I heard the cry of pain in such vivid ways. Gut wrenching imploring cries for God to help her and give her strength.

Ashley did a beautiful job of telling the story on her blog and so for the sake of this heart (which may be entirely selfish) I'm gonna just let you read her blog. You'll find it as the first post if you hit her link on the right side of my blog. Very honestly I'm having a hard time reliving it to tell you about it.

I've learned so much in the past few days yet again. I learned that when I'm weak He is strong, that when I'm asked to do things that I CAN NOT do, that He will carry me. I've learned that you really can build a family with people of all different colors and backgrounds and ages and you can all come together and love each other a great deal. I've learned that poverty can be so unforgiving sometimes...and it's made me want to sell everything I own, when I have realized in new ways our excessive abundance while most of the rest of the world is starving and hurting so badly at the injustices in the world.

I've walked into a free hospital now and realized that people die here from things that in the States wouldn't take more than a couple days to fix. I've seen gurney's lining hallways and I've seen caskets that cost $200 as opposed to $20,000 and realized that they hold the contents of the dead just as well. I've watched a one room home become a funeral parlor and I've watched my pickup truck become a hurse as I drove it up the hill to a burial plot that had been dug by hand without any machines to lower a coffin into the ground. I heard the dirt hit the top of the casket in one of the most sickening sounds I've ever heard and I watched a 4 year old daughter lift her hands up to me as it did and beg for me to let her bury her head into my shoulder and hide as she listened to her mother wailing in grief. As she did I did the only thing I knew to do in that moment and I put my hand over one ear and my mouth near the other and I sang "I Love You Lord" to drown out some of the noise and also to remind myself that when I get it and when I don't, I love Him, I love Him, I love Him, and I will choose to praise Him regardless.

I've now done something here that I wish I would NEVER have had to do. I've seen death and I've experienced it with these precious people. It's changed yet another part of this heart that needed reformed I guess.

I'm ashamed honestly. Today I find myself totally ashamed. Ashamed for having so many things I don't need while a man dies in a hospital you shouldn't have to take your animals to. Ashamed that I'm so self absorbed and so comfortable while a family worries about where they'll find money now that their provider is gone. I'm just ashamed of me. Ashamed of us I guess. I'm ashamed of my American mentality that gives me all sorts of justifications to have what I have as if I deserve it in some way. And sometimes I have false guilt, fair enough, but I'm not sure today is one of those days. Today I think I'm very fair in feeling ashamed and maybe just maybe this time will call me to further action.

Please join me in praying for Santos' family, they need it desperately. Then please join me in praying for "us" all the "us's" that need to give til it hurts so those who hurt might not have to so much anymore. We can't change the world all at once, but I'm tired of that keeping us from changing corners of it at a time, cause that's possible and I'm tired of thinking small when we've got SUCH a HUGE God!!!