God recently showed me something very precious that I want to share with you. As some of you know, in the past year I've lost my dad, step mom, and a dear friend. It has been a hard year, and at times it is difficult to put one foot in front of the other. When Lou and Joneen died within days of each other, both unexpectedly, I went online in desperation to see if I could find info on processing multiple grief. Ironic, because I have taught grief classes for 20 years now! Anyway, I did find a couple of sites, but pretty quickly got directed to sites on the AIDS community because they experience so many of their loved ones dying. And then I made the connection to AIDS... Africa....about that time I realized God was leading me--duh--it hit me--here I am struggling with these losses, yet I have a wonderful support system, enough food to eat, shelter, a loving family, maturity,... Yet these kids we will be working with have lost many loved ones, including parents, and have NONE of those blessings we take for granted. The Lord in His infinite wisdom used my pain to help me understand in a much deeper way how desperately hopeless those precious children must feel.