Stupified, I stared at my laptop screen. The young technician had assured me that even though the virus was severe, he had every hope that the losses would be minimal after his cleaning. But almost all the programs were gone. The few folders left were either empty or contained gibberish. Yet the virus was still there.  A whole year’s work—the teaching materials, reports, church music, everything I’d done—vanished!  I couldn’t even cry. What had my year in Honduras meant?

Things got worse. Last week, the linked computer system in the national office caught another virus with the same effect. To say the office and the church ministries are in crisis is an understatement, particularly when you realize that they are in the midst of an audit.  We all need your prayers.  It has been a hard and disheartening year for the church as it fits to recover from an inheritance of incompetent administration while trying to keep its ministries alive and vital.

As I dejectedly mused on the value of the year’s work here, I arrived at the office to find a group of women helping one another on a project. One piped up cheerily, “We were all feeling so down, and then someone said, “Remember what Janet says: when her plants are not doing well, she clumps them all together and they do better. (I don’t recall saying that, but it is true...) So we decided to all band together and help each other, and now see what we’ve accomplished!”

Another woman told me the other day, “I had a situation where I was unsure what to do. But then I remembered how you always talk about consistency between what we say and do, between faith and action. And then, though it would be hard, I knew what to do.

I owe loads of people—friends and family—answers to letters. As if being sick for two months wasn’t enough, each month since has brought expected and unexpected extra events (travel, visits, etc.) and will continue to do so in Oct. and Nov., too. And now the computer problems… You can’t believe the backlog! Time doesn’t stretch to include everything. In prioritizing, I must choose the work here first, as hard as it is not to send the letters which I long to write to you.  I’m sorry to keep you waiting so long.

I realized then that the value of my work consists also of accompaniment and modeling; it is more than written documents…and that God’s word for the people of Honduras hasn’t changed.