Suffering

Every Monday night we have team worship. Last night was particulary cool because of the speaker we had. She has a bunch of degrees all beginning with "psycho therapy....." and specializes with women etc... Anyway she'll be speaking next week as well and last night was kind of an intro into next week. She said she'll be talking about stress, especially how stress affects missionaries. She mentioned all of these different types of stress (new for me, just usually see it as "STRESS!") and then asked what stressed us out here (so she could get prepped for next week.) Something immediately came to mind and that was the amount of suffering. I know, how dare I say that other people's suffering stresses me out. Honestly though, I don't mean it in a selfish way. Over the past month or so I have really noticed it building up inside of me. There are more kids on the street begging here in Marghita than the years previously put together. There are no programs to help them and no one cares. The babies at the hospital still keep coming. There are no programs to help this either and no one to start them. The gypsy mom dies and her girls get split up everywhere and the oldest will remain unschooled in the trash dump with her step-father. The social workers can't fine him for not putting her in school b/c he's too poor to pay the fines. In addition there are no programs to help him/her socially or to get a new home and no one to start them either. Our older orphans who live on their own have no 1 on 1 mentorship and their lives and faiths have slipped really far backwards. There just are not enough people to have that contact with the 70 or so of them. And most of the churches in Marghita don't accept them as equals anyway so the closeness and love they felt while in our group foster homes (called transit homes - transitional period from orphanage to living on their own) isn't exemplified in the churches.
I don't know, it just wears on you. Our foundation always puts that story about the starfish on the beach and the kid throwing one back b/c "it made a difference to that one" on goodbye notes to people. But what I told this lady last night was that I can't take my eyes off from the thousands left on the beach. Then she said the word "suffering." She said that we have to learn to accept that there is suffering in the world and that God has chosen not to end it...yet.
I realized that maybe I haven't accepted that - suffering. And because I haven't accepted that it can't all go away through programs and stuff that it becomes extremely stressful. So, in response to this and the other situations people brought up last night we'll be learning stress techniques next week. I think it'll be a good night!