cause sometimes it doesn't all make sense...

...but we know and trust and believe that God is good and He is love.  

Today our hearts are broken over the loss of a young patient.

The beautiful 5-year-old girl from Northern Madagascar passed away on board the Africa Mercy on Thursday 10 March, at 5.45pm. She died two days after a very unusual, rare and severe reaction to the surgical procedure in combination with general anaesthetic, during treatment to remove a complex tumour of her lower face and neck. Her mother had been at her bedside since their arrival to the Mercy Ship on 20 January and her senior uncle joined them Thursday evening.

Official formalities with the local authorities were completed Friday morning and the family and the body are flown back to their village in the afternoon to prepare for her funeral.

Our prayers and our love leave with them.

-Mercy Ships Press Release, Saturday March 12, 2016

It's hard when hope and healing do not look the way we imagine that they will.  It's hard when we pray for life and yet death is the gift of grace that is given.  It's hard when we want to know answers and reasons and explanations...yet they aren't ours for the taking.

Here are 3 blog posts that may give you a better picture of the situation, ways to pray and glimpses into the beautiful hearts of our crew (we would highly encourage you to click on the links and read these posts):

• KJ's Blog
• Brian's thoughts on the Barki's blog
• Krissy's Blog

Small excerpt from last Sunday's sermon -- finding God in Esther:

"...and sometimes there’s going to be a great reversal that we get to experience on earth – it’s all going to come together and make sense…and we can trust that even if there’s not an earthly conclusion that makes sense, there will be heavenly conclusions that make sense…we can still have faith, believing that our God is working even when circumstances are uncontrollable – even when life is unpredictable..."

Surely there will be more to come.