A Little Bit 'O Spring...and a Walk to Beautiful...

So it's going to be 78 degrees today, then down in the 40's by tomorrow, to last a few days. I am trying really hard to keep things in perspective, remembering that any weather God gives to us is His will, and I should "rejoice and be glad in it" because it is His day. Especially during Lent.
I was up in the middle of the night a few days ago (Angela was having a hard time sleeping or had a bad dream or something, so I got up to sit with her for awhile until she fell asleep.) Anywho, I flip channels around to the PBS station (thanks to our fancy new DTVConverter!) and find a NOVA program called "A Walk to Beautiful." It was a tragic yet hopeful documentary about the plight of women in impoverished countries, Ethiopia in this case, who have no access to medical care, and suffer "fistulas" when they are in labor for days upon days. The result is chronic incontinence, no control of bowels or urine whatsoever in many of the women. They are shunned and secluded because of this injury, and many are young girls who have been raped or married very young. The "Walk" part is that there are hospitals and doctors who are addressing the problem, largely made possible from a charitable foundation called the Fistula Foundation, but the afflicted women often must walk hundreds of miles to get to them. Once there, they are given surgeries to correct the problem (it is curable!), a clean dress, and a bus ticket home. It reminded me how good we have it, despite all the complaining I may do. It reminded me that those people are no less people than I. I could just as easily be there as here.
Just as I never understood what it meant to have a handicapped child until I had one of my own, or deal with serious injuries such as Jeff's until he had them, I am sure I could have no true understanding of life as an Ethiopian woman living in Godless squalor. Despite modern communication and travel, the world is still very very big. I am feeling very small and insignificant indeed.