I wish I could write it all down. The names, dates, places, and organizations. But, I will refrain.

But the indignance, the righteous anger I have, will not be silenced.

Yet again, one we know, this time one of our ninos, a student who long ago studied in Granada, and we had moments of connection with, came back. This happens at least once a year. We get a text, phone call or whatever and a name from our past says, "Finally! Bringing the husband/wife/fam, can we have a coffee?"

And we get dressed on a windy, fall afternoon and ride Andrew's scooter to the vibing, thriving center of Granada with thousands of tourists gaping up at the buildings, eating icecream and finding a coffee. And we find them, and hug them and sit down and ask, "How are you?"

It doesn't take long, and halfway through a cup of coffee, it all come pouring out. Tenative at first, and then all of the nitty, gritty, ,awful details, as my Uncle Peter says, the plot of life then sickens.

I know, I know, its a broken world. But what breaks my heart is to again sit at a table or sometimes its a virtual table and read the email/note/message and hear again how another Christian insitutation has taken a young person, or any person, chewed them up and spat them out.

This young woman, looked at me and said, "So how do I bounce back from this?" I cried. 

So for more than an hour, we listened, consoled, told our own stories that ring familiar and true and painful, cry and offer the hope that we know does not disappoint as best we can.

And we come home, again on the moto, clutching each other as we try not to cry. We get home and then we cry.

My answer to the young woman yesterday, "We learn to live in the lament, we look for the hope, and we understand that grief is part of this moment." Writing it down looks so trite, so shallow, so brief and so cliche, but later we spoke of redemeption, of How God leads us to new life, abundant life and we spoke of her dreams for the future.

Every single month, we  have someone and someones like this. And Andrew and I understand that this, this part of hospitality, of seeing God's kingdom come at the table, this is what we are meant to do. Sometimes its someone who still believes, who still clings to faith and sometimes they don't.  Sometimes its a person who has been spiritually abused, and sometimes its a person who has been that and more, physically, emotionally, mentally, fill in the blank.

We have always done this as a couple, and now we wish to expand, do this more, show more people how much in the lament, there is still hope and love and grace and mercy. We've got the house and business plans in a drawer, waiting for the money and the open doors. We have the desire, the deepest of desires that wakes you up on the middle the night with longing. And we believe this is the time. But we wait for the door to be fully opened, for the money to be there and those last two elements have taken a lot of human time.

But we know hope does not disappoint.