Gone...

Tough week. Started with a funeral on Monday. An infant funeral. I’m pretty sue that was a first for me. I hope it’s a last. I don’t think I’ve seen anything more heartbreaking and gut wrenching than a father carrying his infant daughter’s casket. And he was pretty strong about it. I know for a fact I would have been a basket case. We met this family sometime previous to the Christmas of 2007. I know this because we’ve been blessed to help them the past two Christmases. They have 3 other young children. When we met them, they were homeless. Now? They have an apartment and they are struggling, but doing better. But this was definitely a bit of a setback. That seems so trivial to say the death of an infant daughter was a setback. I don’t know what else to call it. It was so difficult for me. I can’t imagine what it was like for them. Baby Pearl was born prematurely and was just not strong enough to make it on her own. There were complications. The parents had to make the extremely difficult decision of removing the life support. I don’t know how you make that decision. I just don’t know. She was a beautiful little girl. She is a beautiful little girl. She’s with our Father now. That much I know. But it was probably the most difficult parting service I’ve ever witnessed. At least for someone that wasn’t a part of my immediate family. This family though, has been through so much. And now this? Some things just don’t make sense to me.

And then when I got home from work Monday afternoon, we received a letter stating that a friend whom we’d been trying to help with a cataract surgery had been denied an opportunity to receive a free surgery to remove or repair his cataracts. Whatever it is they do. The thing is, they reviewed 60 or so candidates. Of those, they chose 23. We were convinced he’d be one of the 23. And so, I get home from work that day, see the letter and the hope I experience as I open the letter is overwhelming. You see, throughout this whole process, he has proclaimed to Robin and I that he is counting on us. Flaw number one. Never count on your fellow man. I mean hope that things will come out the way you’d like, but never count on it or we might be setting ourselves up for disappointment, right? I tried to explain that to him many times. So when I open the letter and find out that he has been rejected, I of course was pretty bummed. We wanted so badly for him to get this done. Well, as God would have it, He gave us a backup plan. Actually, it was probably His main plan. A family who has helped in many ways, was deciding what to do with a particular amount of money. It was the young son who had this fellow on his mind and heart. And as God would have it, this young boy really wanted to help in this situation. Now he didn’t even know that this fellow was rejected by the eye clinic. He just wanted to help. So they asked if they could help in this particular situation. Are you kidding me? Seriously? Yeah. Absolutely. So stay tuned for this one…more to come here for sure.

Sadly, we lost another friend this past week. This is the local news blurb:

"A man's body found along the Missouri River in downtown Omaha Tuesday morning has been identified as 55-year-old Robert Naeve.

A tugboat operator noticed the body on the Nebraska side of the river south of Riverfront Drive and Dodge Street shortly after 11 a.m. The area is home to a number of transients.

The cause of death is still pending results of the autopsy. Investigators do not think it's suspicious."

Now here’s the thing. I didn’t know this fellow very well. I saw him almost weekly. I know that he spent the entire winter living on the river. And survived that only to leave us just as spring is breaking. I’d like to be able to give funny analogies and stories about Bob, but like I said, I just didn’t know him that well. I tried several times to get to know him a little better, but he was just a more reserved kind of fellow and didn’t talk much. About the only thing I really remember from any of our recent encounters was helping him with a pair of boots this past winter. He was so thankful and appreciated the fact that he could get a new pair of boots without having to do anything in return. No strings. No forms to fill out. No conditions. Just a simple transaction, but to him it must have meant something because he thanked me several times over the next few weeks. And then we received word on Tuesday that a body had been found down by the river. And over the next few days, we learned who it was. It is so saddening and disheartening to hear of these things. Very, very difficult. I find myself scouring the papers and Google to see if there is any word about these types of things. And I usually find very little. These guys are just on the outer edges of our daily lives and yet when they leave us, it is with little or no fanfare. Just a 2 or 3 sentence blurb in the local paper, a mention about the fact that his last known address was probably a shelter or a place where the homeless or transients hang out and then they pretty much disappear from our view. I pray that somehow, someway Bob knew the Lord. In THAT way. I just can’t imagine our friends being so marginalized that not only are they somewhat separated from society, so to speak, but they are also separated from God. That is heartbreaking. I pray that somewhere along the way, Bob accepted Christ in his life. That the light of Christ shined on him and he is now in his eternal resting place.

And finally…our streak is over. Today the forecast was for a 65% chance of rain at noon. It rained off and on all night and pretty much all morning. It rained all the way downtown today. But you know a funny thing happened. We arrived downtown and I halfway expected a small crowd due to the nasty weather we were experiencing. But that was not the case at all. It was probably one of the larger crowds we've had so far this year. As we unloaded the trailer, the rain was spitting. Peopel were hustling to get things set up before the rains came. I asked a friend to pray that the rain would stop. he looked at me funny. I said I meant it and right now! He again looked at me funny. I again told him I meant it! Right now! And finally he complied. And it wasn’t like we didn’t pray all morning for the rain to stop. And all the way downtown! So as we got everything set up, the rain started coming down a bit harder. It never poured. That’s the upside. It did rain. That was the downside. In 2.5 years, it had never rained on us downtown. Today that streak ended. I guess it’s time to start the next streak. So while it did rain, we did not get rained out. That has never happened. I pray that it never will. And today we had a huge crowd in spite of the weather. And an amazing meal. A local girl scout troop provided the entire meal. Homemade Salisbury steak, corn, mashed potatoes and gravy. What an amazing day. What an amazing ministry. What an amazing God we serve! Even in the rain! :)

The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it. ~John 1:5

Peace, have a great and blessed week and make a difference.

For he will deliver the needy who cry out, the afflicted who have no one to help. ~Psalm 72:12

…it matters to that one… :)