Walk out your front door...

Awhile back I wrote a walk out your front door post, and today unfortunately it's time for another one. This is the view today...Those of you familiar with the area will recognize the cross in the upper right hand corner--that's the Hewitt Center, giving you a good idea of where the photo was taken (I was standing on my doorstep).

Earlier my view was of a teenage male riding away on his bike after shooting a 30 year old father 5 times in the neck. I don't have complete confirmation that he died, but I would be shocked to find out he survived. This is the closest I have ever personally experienced murder, I hope to never be closer, this alone was way to close for comfort. Here's a map of our streets for those of you not familiar with our home...

Trish had been over all morning, we were just chatting--it was great. She went outside to get something for Paxton out of her car and I followed her out with the boys on our heals (thankfully they actually stayed inside of the house). Within less than a minute we heard 5 gunshots, looked at each other, I think both wondered if that was for sure what we heard (but both knew in our guts it was), and then we both saw the shooter run, stumble around to move fast, pick up a bike, and ride away. I just stood there in shock for a moment thinking it couldn't be real, and for a second convinced myself it was just fireworks and a crazy kid riding away because he shot a firework in the middle of the street. Trish ran over to check and unfortunately she was one of the first to see the fallen man, lying alone on the sidewalk, bleeding form the wounds in his neck, not moving. She was the first to call the police and they came before she even hung up.

This whole time Ky and Pax are standing behind me in the house behind the glass door. Paxton is old enough that I had to explain to him what happened. Not something you want to tell your 6 year old, but this is our life and he knows it. He fully understands our role as a missionary family now and knows why we live where we live. We have had many talks lately about this.

The man was rushed away in the back of a police car to the hospital and I haven't heard an update but from what Trish saw, it doesn't seem hopeful. From what we have put together, this is a father of 6, who lives across the street from us, on Shannon's street, Elkhart. A few of his children were outside when it happened and saw their Daddy fall. It was a teenager who did it, I saw him ride away--a very disturbing image in my mind on several different levels.

Obviously I don't even have to write that this is difficult, that my brain and heart are struggling. There are so many different levels of struggle inside of me right now--I couldn't even begin to write them all out. One thing I will say is that this does NOT cause me to fear, it doesn't make me nervous or scared. I rarely feel that in our life here. God provides us with an unbelievable sense of peace and protection in our life, I honestly rarely fear. My struggles are more with sadness, of remembering the reason we serve here, the pain for the children and family of the man, the destroyed life of the teenage shooter, the desperate desire to bring hope to so many kids and families we work with who see this along with us everyday. Who grow up with tragedy like this as being normal. The difference between them and us is that we could leave if we wanted to. Many of them can't.

Please keep this in your prayers, please continue to pray for hope and light to be brought into this community filled with darkness. Please pray for God to work through us in any way He wants.

Updated...here is a link to the news story