Weeping may linger for the night

Psalm 30 kept swirling through my mind as I heard stories of grief and loss. ​Weeping may linger for the night, but joy comes with the morning. The residents of Nichols, who went to bed relieved that the rains of Hurricane Matthew had flooded the river, but the water wouldn't flood their homes. They woke up to find that flooding upstream in North Carolina breached dams, and at least one dam was opened on purpose to protect North Carolinians, and the tiny town of Nichols sat in four feet of water for two weeks. I'm glad I don't have the choice about which towns will flood. Click for more pictures from Oct 2016.

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Weeping will linger many, many nights for the families who sent sons, brothers, a husband to North Carolina to rebuild homes, and two men will never come home. The road accident happened in a neighboring community rebuilding from the same flood that we were helping rebuild from.
You have turned my mourning into dancing.
We remembered together how fleeting and fragile life is, and were once again grateful that we sold our trailer to "simply" live in the van. Hauling a trailer is scary.

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Ten members of our team are Old Order Mennonites from Wisconsin. Their inspiration to come was a death in the family, and part of their grief was to get away together and serve others. ​Weeping may linger for the night but joy comes with the morning. Life's heavy losses require more than one night of weeping, more than three days bereavement leave. But the balance of night and day is part of God's genius design, that our lives be a balance of rest and work, of loss and joy. Or as we remembered as we played, a balance of taking apart and building up.