Fifteen years ago

Fifteen years ago Jackie was pregnant with my beautiful little girl Danielle, Robert was a cute nearly three-year-old little boy, and I was a young, naïve about just how fragile life is, man trying to make a yellow light before it turned red. I did make the light but in my haste I failed to see the tow truck that was running the red light for the crossing traffic. We entered the intersection in our newly purchased Toyota Tercel and were struck on the driver side door with enough force to spin the car around and push us into the oncoming lanes of the crossing street. Jackie immediately began to panic. It was a hyper ventilating scream that just kept repeating and repeating. Instinct kicked in for me. I looked around and saw that no one was majorly hurt at least not to look at us. But I knew that I had to calm Jackie down. Robert was starting to panic as he listened to his mom’s screams. I had to get out of that car so I could get Robert out. I tried to calm Jackie with little success. I was able to push the mangled door open with the help of someone who stopped to see if we were OK. I pulled Robert out and tried to calm him and then went to attend to his mom and was able to calm her. By then the ambulance was there to take Jackie to the hospital to check to see if Danielle was OK. Up to that point I had not allowed myself to think that anything could possibly be wrong. And as it turned out nothing was. The greatest injury sustained was the glass that imbedded itself in my arm when the driver side door window shattered. And I did not realize that until we were all at the hospital.

So, last Friday when I got the call telling me that my son was taking Danielle to the hospital for appendicitis, instinct kicked in once again. I knew I had to keep everyone calm. Jackie and I were nine hours away in Puerto Peñasco Mexico. I knew that I had to break the news to Jackie in such a way that she would not panic. I was only somewhat successful. I knew I had to take care of some things before I left, had I known just how serious the situation was I am not sure I could have done it. I just would not allow myself the thoughts that anything really bad could happen. We would take care of what we could and get on the road, and that is what we did. It was a long drive home. We had to get updates on Danielle by phone as we drove across Arizona and New Mexico. Danielle suffered a ruptured appendix and under went surgery and we could not get there to hold her hand. I still would not allow myself to think that she would not be alright. I told myself that the doctors handle this kind of thing all the time and she would be OK but that did not help the guilt I felt for not being able to be there. When we got to the hospital the surgery was over and they said everything went well and that she would likely be in the hospital for seven days to recover. So at that point I knew I was right that everything would be OK. But on Thursday nearly a week later, the doctors started to worry. Danielle’s white blood cell count was not coming down. She was taken in for a CT scan and they found two abscesses of infection. They wanted to do what they described as a simple non-surgical invasive radiology procedure, where they would insert catheters into the abscesses to drain the infection. But as I watched and waited outside I realized this was no simple procedure. As I watched Danielle try to recover from the “non” surgery I had no one to keep calm. I had no job to make sure was getting done. And I was having a hard time keeping myself calm, and I finally allowed myself to think about what my Daughter has been going through. I finally realized that I could have easily lost my little girl, and I realized that she had not yet past that threat. She has spent the last 11 days in the hospital and things are really starting to look good. Her white blood cell count has finally started to drop and the doctors think things are looking good. Tomorrow they will take her in for a CT scan to see if all the infections have been taken care of. Then maybe we will get to bring our little girl home.

I did not realize it but I have been doing the same thing for the last year and a half with my work. Trying to keep calm and trying to keep everyone around me calm. It is probably why I have had such a hard time writing any updates to my blog. I am sure most of you know that the situation in Mexico and especially Juarez Mexico has been very bad. Every time I sat down to write anything about it seemed to get worse. I have been trying to trust God that everything will work things out the way he wants. Or at least that he will use what ever happens for good. But I have to face the fact that what God sees as good is not always what I see as good. God could have taken Danielle from me. Things like that happen every day to people all over the world. God can and does use it for good. But I would not have seen it as good. Likewise I am having trouble in seeing how God is using the drug war in Mexico for his good. And for that reason I would write but I would not post because it sounded so negative. I am going to try not to do that anymore. I know that you all have supported me for so many years, through your prayers and through your gifts. I owe it to you to allow you to support me through this as well.

Many things have happened over the past year and a half. Many of you know about them but not all of you. In October 2008 I had to let a friend go that I had worked with for more then six years. Not long before, the violence from the drug war had really started to intensify. In December of 2008 he was dead, a victim of a shooting at a Juarez Gas station. I really struggled with it for quite a long time. In March 2009 the U.S. consulate released a warning that we had no information on and we made the decision to cancel all of the youth mission trips to our Chihuahua field that spring. We did a lot of investigating before we felt comfortable enough to allow groups to start coming back. Then we had the swine flew scare and what groups we did have started to cancel. In the summer of 2009 I drove by a shooting in the Juarez area. I was scared. It only took a few seconds, but I never drove the same way again. My eyes are constantly scanning the road for anything that looks suspicious. By the end of 2009 we had only built ten houses in the Chihuahua field. On a normal year we were building close to two hundred. 2010 started to look up some groups were starting to sign up for spring I was thinking that we might double or even triple the number of houses of 2009. However on the second day of our spring season in Chihuahua there was a shooting not far from our camp. Around the same time there was a shooting in Juarez claiming the lives of people with close ties to the U.S. consulate. The consulate evacuated all U.S. personnel. While our groups were not in danger we felt it was best to do the same. So four houses were left unfinished, and my thoughts of doing more houses this year left with the groups.

There is a good side to all this negative news. There was a donation made enabling our pastors to build seven homes for families that would not be receiving a home due to all of the violence. In light of the work that the pastors were already doing, the groups that were evacuated donated their funds so that the houses could be finished. So, ten houses will be built this year as well and the year is not over yet. Let’s hope God wants to do more. But if that is not what He wants. Let’s hope I am OK with it.