so the biggest story since i got home and the one that has had me so overwhelmed that doing anything...including writing about it...has been an extra challenge...on saturday after getting in from our trip to gonaives and saying bye to the team and meeting ti zwazo and seeing our kids i had missed and mama dorothy and kez and dannae and the nannies...i went to take the much needed bath...everyone was excited....when i came out i heard the car leaving (everyone hears when our car leaves) and since we rarely ever drive a dark i immediately thought something was wrong with the baby...instead i found dorothy holding her and saying that what we had been hearing rumor of and dreading had happened...the government had come into the ravine where many of our kids come from, where many of sherrie's students live, where keziah walks and treats sick children and families every week and knocked down over 300 homes...crushed them and pushed the debris into the ravine where it would be neary impossible to salvage from...kez and sam were on their way down to see what they could do...

after praying and hugging and at least laying eyes on as many families as they could...they managed to secure a warehouse as very temporary sleeping space for all the people who were now homeless and hadn't found somewhere to spend the night...not long after that...it started to rain...probably the hardest thing i have done since i have been in haiti...maybe in my whole life....was to lay my head down in a dry bed, under a solid roof, with a full belly that night....

the next day i went down with kez and sam to survey the situation in the daylight...it is so overwhelming and it is only the beginning... more sections are coming down every day...all in the supposed name of progress...the mayor claims to be planning to widen and repair roads...even if that were true...they are destroying at a much faster rate than they could ever hope to build...and displacing 1000s of the poorest people with little or no warning and no compensation after they would have just struggled to come up with a year's rent 2 months ago. the odds of finding a place and money to pay for it with are at their worst and even leaving town for the country puts them away from resources, schools and meals for their kids, medical care, jobs, missionaries...you get the idea. it is such a mess...kez was able to help some of her families, sherrie some of hers, and i drove down and helped move one of our nannies out of her home which is scheduled for demolition. but the effects of this are going to be so lasting and it overwhelms my heart...who and where and how to help ....the questions are so big and it makes me feel so small...how do i show these people that god is bigger than this...that his love for them is bigger than this...