Many years ago we found ourselves in Thailand doing mission work.  We had just come from Mindanao in the Philippines and it had been a very difficult trip.  When we arrived at the boarding house in Bangkok where we were to stay for the next five weeks, we were all thrilled that it was clean and even had indoor plumbing.  While we had been in the Philippines, we had been living mostly in the jungles, during the war, and the devastating Typhoons as well.  It had been a difficult trip and we were all extremely tired.  We had even had a brief experience being captured, (another story~another time folks) This was going to be a lovely change for us all.

After tossing and turning for quite some time, I finally gave in to the images of people and places that kept flooding my thoughts and pillaging my needed repose.  I could see dear Nena, young wife and mother of 5, whose husband was struggling for life due to a gunshot wound to the neck.  Laying in a government hospital where treatment continues as long as funds are available,  the whole family’s future lay in the balance.  The narco-war intersected without pretense into the lives of the innocent yet again, leaving little ones suffering in the wake of their violent enterprises.

Situated in the middle of seven barrios where  ruling gangs fight for territory, not a day goes by that we don’t  see new graffiti on the walls around our home.   The youths spray their gang  colors on the walls and vehicles of the rival gangs’ turf.  Even our own home and trailer has been decorated in times past.   The gangs mostly leave us alone now, as our work in Tepehua is well known and they want us there.  Derrumbles, the most violent of the neighboring gangs, seem to be the most creative in their designs.  Each design is meant as an intimidating reminder of who is lord over where.