Oh, I Hear It's Christmas!

Time, as the saying goes, has flown...too long by far since our last update. I'm not really offering an excuse, but it's been SO busy here. But now, it's changed. Today we had a thankyou meal and reception for all the 100+ local day (and night) workers who have worked so hard in so many ways. Today the last three patients were discharged from the hospital, and about an hour later their beds etc had joined all the others and had been packed up and strapped down in readiness for our leaving Liberia in the next couple of weeks. The wards, the corridors...they are too quiet; no small children being towed up and down outside the Paeds ward in a 'Mercedes' cardboard box, no mamas laughing, no translators singing just because they are glad to be alive, no one walking or seeing or eating for the first time in years...or ever.

Of course life goes on, things to organise for Tenerife equipment wise, plans to check for after we arrive in Benin..plenty to do. Bu the echoes are too strong, it seems it is possible to be sad and happy at the same time. Happy memories of friends made, lives changed, places visited; and sadness, that these are now just memories. We actually have a very busy weekend coming up 'offship', but it's the beginning of the end. Yet we are in awe of what God has done, the times He has intervened and touched people in ways only He can do, and the times He has used people who love Him to do His work in His name. We feel so honoured to have a part of it all, even when it hurt, even now when we are so tired.

Soon we will be back to Europe, where the highways are usually maintained, where the cars never fall apart in the middle of the road, where cities have piped water and sewage and electricity cables. Where more than 74% of children will still be alive on their 5th birthday. Where it is rare for people to hide away, ostracised, because of some little bump that has now become a festering, oozing mass the size of a melon. Where most people have no time for Jesus Christ, have never had to chose whether to forgive and love the man, women or child-soldier who murdered their family and tried to ruin thir lives. Oh, and where the taxis do not all come from Holland (apart from IN Holland I suppose)!!!

This Christmas day, for most Liberians it will, of necessity, be like any other day; and yet many will choose to honour the Lord their God with all their heart and soul and mind. How much more should we, who have been blessed in so many ways?!

Thats enough for now, thank you to everyone who has encouraged, helped and supported us in so many ways this year...2009..bring it on!