Some days you get the bear...

Last night sometime...the clinic was robbed. As you can see, they used a straight bar to accomplish this, along with quite a bit of effort and time. They even bent their bar...which we found a few feet away. They took a microscope from the lab, and Valerie's projector and BIO. Of course...those three items are very expensive to replace, but have little to no street value for them to sell. We presume it was the youth that constantly hangs out there. Why? Well, these were not seasoned thieves that knew what they were doing because they did not steal the telephones, TV, DVD player, or....anything else. Mostly this has served to be a huge pain to serving the patients, and demoralizing and depressing to all of us.

In a slight twist, they planted some of our own tools at the inside of the window to implicate another boy that helps us around the clinic from time to time.

I told Oscar and Valerie...spiritually it is easy to see this is Satan, on a human level it just does not make much sense, at least that we can see.

So Oscar is on the hunt to get our welder buddy to now change every window in the place to be more secure. Hopefully this can be done before the Christmas vacation coming up. Cost there...hopefully less than $1,000. Ugh, but it has to be done.

The police came...en mass. The picture is blurry because...I did not really ask permission to get this group's picture. I say this group because there were more outside the clinic walking around. If we wanted to make our complaint official...then we would have to leave the window busted until their investigative team could show up. Uh yeah, we have to fix that today, so that will not be happening. Besides...you have to understand that this will never be solved, no one will ever be found, nothing will be returned. In Honduras, the vast majority of crimes are never solved, and criminals are not caught.

It would be great to have an overnight watchman full time, but that would cost us over $350 per month....not exactly something in our current budget...especially with all the other projects we are trying to fund that are specifically for the advancement of the Kingdom. We will have to see what God shows us, as I talked to Pastor Manuel and the gun we have loaned him he has used several times to dissuade people trying to break into the man cave and jumping the wall at the new cistern to get at the new clinic recently, not to mention the vandalism, and in the recently not being used snack shop we have found people are using it for late night rendezvous.
So...here we are. I still do not feel qualified to whine and complain. Good grief there are people out there putting up with so much more! Was anyone hurt? No....neither us nor those that did this. We can pray for their repentance, and for God's guidance in our hearts in this and all we do in His name. And yet...this is hard. Just one more "thing" on a pile of things. Some good things, some bad things, but they all add up.

Here are some more: How do we help girls from a family we care for be able to go to school, to a real school where they will learn? How can we work more with the Church...I talked to Manuel today about them offering counseling services voluntarily in the clinic...will they have people willing to do that very important function? How about the story of the poor man Oscar knows who came for his son's consult, and was ready to sell his sledge hammer (which is how he eeks out a living) to pay for his son's IV treatment we could not give him as part of the medicines we have on hand that we also gave him. Oscar talked to him...we gave him back his money, and several days later with the IV treatment plus the other medicines we gave him his son pulled out of it (and did not die as he was half expecting)...he was so grateful he came back and cut a big chunk of our overgrown lawn.

Emotions abound, struggles are around...God's love, grace and mercy never fail. We may cry, we may shout for joy...we pray we can stay strong and able to be able to do both where needed.

Sorry if this is hurried and not proof-read, I am getting ready to head out the door to help unload a container up on the property...quite the day this is turning out to be. Of course, Murphy's law could still apply, it happens often enough....I get all ready, I run out to get there....and nothing happens until tomorrow, when Oscar and I are scheduled to be out of town all day. I pray that does not come to pass today.