Standing in the need . .

. . of prayer. Scott will land in less than an hour, to face the multitude of issues that have awaited his attention (patients, requests, finances, mechanical problems, you name it, you can't leave here for six days and not have a certain number things pile up). Not to mention three kids who are NOT happy for their mother to leave AGAIN. Pray for him.

And for me, too. This morning has been an emotional slap, a reminder of what we face. Peter John's sister Grace came to clinic, the teenage girl caring for her orphaned brother who we bet on to pull him through some months back. He's so much better . . . but she asked to be HIV tested. And she's infected too. She's a bit old to have been carrying the virus since birth, so I started asking more questions, and finally it dawned on me what had happened. My gentle translator almost refused to ask, but now we're glad we did, Grace needed to unburden and had a good cry and I had one later. Grace and her brother had the same mother, but different fathers. So as Grace was caring for her dying mother in the end stages of AIDS, her mother's husband began to sexually abuse her. Now he's dead too, leaving her with an unwanted virus, no parents, and a sick sibling. Please pray for her to grasp hope, somehow. That on top of ward rounds and saying goodbye to my kids, rushing to make the plane . . . and to top it off, the bush baby Komba stopped chirping last night, I barely got him to take any milk today, and now I'm sure he's dying. Just a tiny little non-human life and nothing compared to the sorrow of those all around me, but still a way to grieve the pain of feeding and caring for a frail speck of breath that is then extinguished.