Gretchen returned while Adam and Vilma went to the states. Brandi is returning this weekend. Larry and sue are leaving next month as will Chad and Abby for a month. So it is revolving door time before the large teams begin coming this summer.

Sebastian and Analy had everything organized for the siblings(91 sets) to eat together. They loved it and this time there was no chaos.

You and I should never take for granted the nearness of God. Throughout the ages people have called out “Where are you God?”. I have been guilty of such a cry in times past. I remember the death of our first child over 50 years ago as though it were yesterday, I remember Dottie and I were in Bakersfield, California with a dead child on her lap.

Our families were in Arkansas and Louisisana which might as well have been 10,000 miles away in those days before interstates. We were consummed with pain and the feeling of abandonment. The physicians had not warned us the child would be mentally retarded and affected with a deadly heart disease. We were totally alone on an island of misery.

I did not literally ask God where He was but I wondered if I could hold myself together long enough to help Dottie through her grief. My heart felt so empty and without any answers. But God was near. There were no burning bushes or rustling in the mulberry trees but there was a comfort and a strength that began to fill me.

God sent a friend, Rusty, who walked me as a 19 year old through the steps of the coroner, funeral home and arrangements to fly my child to Arkansas for burial. He made the arrangements with the funeral home in Crossett and he saw to it that Dottie and I could leave early for the long trip to East Arkansas.

God has always been near to His children. Folks say, “Where is God?” when they sometimes could look to the right or the left and see God manifested in the love of His children for one another. If people do not see God in us where will they see him?