Where have all the People Gone?

I am back living in the same city I spent almost a decade of my life in but it doesn’t feel like the same place.  Whole neighbourhoods have been knocked down or blocked off with barbed wire. Several of the people I used to know, both local and expat, are gone.  The locals have been taken in for ‘re-education,’ often without family members knowing where they went or how long they will be gone for. These constant disappearances are taxing. In one week, I received news of two local friends who were taken in, two fellow workers that were kicked out of the country, and two more workers who just decided it wasn’t worth the hassle of trying to come back: so many goodbyes, so much uncertainty, so much fear and pain. Oh Father, make us so much more aware of your constant grace and presence in the midst of it all.