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Love hurts. I know a lot of people who choose to keep themselves distant from others, because when you’re close to people, it can be painful. They can choose to leave. They can say hurtful things. They can die. But as for me, I will never stop loving. Right now I am emotionally exhausted. I cried for about 6 hours yesterday (and we’re only just entering the marathon mourning process) – because I am missing Captain Pamacheche. But along with the pain of love – the pain of losing someone; the pain of watching someone you love suffer.... there is also great joy and great depth of spirit in love. I was created to love, and I will never stop loving no matter how much it hurts.

Amai Pamacheche was wailing yesterday. Weeping and wailing, and it was so painful to listen to that all the ladies who came to visit tried to sing louder and louder to cover up the sobbing. But it hurts. She and Captain were so in love – so close. For the past couple of months as he’s been sick, she was at his side every minute, talking with him, tending to his needs, praying through the night. And now he’s gone. I cannot imagine the loss. You share a bed with someone; you share a life with someone; you share joys and jokes and dreams and sorrows with your life partner, and then… he’s gone. I don’t know what I would do without John… True love. It hurts, but it is a beautiful sort of pain.

It was Alice’s birthday the other day, and she wanted me to pray a blessing over her. She also wanted her husband Mac to pray for her. Mac is very depressed these days – about the state of our nation, about the economy, and about the fact that he was run over by a bicycle and could not afford any treatment (he had to walk to the nearest clinic, and then got turned away, because his pensioner’s medical coverage is worth nothing). So, he didn’t want to pray. But then he agreed – because of true love. “God, thank you for my wife Alice. Thank you for her courage, and thanks that we get to be together. God, you need to help us, because we don’t know what to do. I love her. Thank you.” True love.