Home to Columbus!

Yes, as Dean said earlier, we are home! After many days of cold showers, boy, did a hot bath feel good!! Again, what a trip! Lots of sadness in Nicaragua. So heartbreaking to see all those people and especially the children, in such miserable conditions. You'll never see any more beautiful children (except for my grandkids!!!) anywhere and it just breaks your heart knowing that their future holds very little promise of anything better than what they have now. We saw newborn babies born during the week with birth defects, one that needed immediate recusitation after birth, another 2 month old who, up till now, had only been fed Kool-Aid and rice water and still looked like a preemie and was probably going to die soon without better nourishment, and on and on and on. Friday evening when we were finished at the hospital and were packing totes to leave the hospital, we saw a group of young men bringing a casket in to pick up a body of a young man who had just died from AIDS. Earlier in the day, we saw a newborn baby delivered by C-section. As Sue said this afternoon at the airport in Houston, we saw the full circle of life that day. As was the case last year, there are soooo many stories. It's a very humbling experience to work down there and see how people live in other parts of the world. It truly makes a person recognize how much we have and how lucky we are to live where we do. It was a pleasure to work with all the people on our team as well as the members of the California team. Here's hoping for safe travels for the rest of our team as well as the California group. Thank you to all who have followed our blogs and for your prayers.