As I am about to head home, and as I pen these words, I find myself strangely emotional. How intense but amazingly fulfilling these two weeks have been! Along the way, I think I have experienced every conceivable human emotion from joy, laughter and peace to grief, stress and frustration. I think the only emotions not experienced were raging anger and stark raving fear (but wait, the week is not over).

Pastor Joseph was amazingly loving, deeply spiritual and one of the most humble servants I have ever known; but he never wrote anything down and did not share much, if anything (especially problems and issues), with his wife Edith or with anyone else.

No record of exactly how many children we were helping, of which children went to which schools, who he may have owed money to, what he had promised to whom, who had been paid for what, etc etc. So when my friend died, tons of information died with him. So, the week was a sort of triage treasure hunt filled with one surprise after another, which then called for one “battle field decision” after another. The challenge was to discover and reconstruct all of the above, get all of the children back in their respective schools, with all of the supplies they needed (which had to be figured out and done in a matter of a few days!); and then, before departing, make sure there was a transition plan in place that would get us through the next three to six months in a reasonably stable fashion.
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