Desert Smuggling to the Promised Land

We had become close to the family across the street from us as they had a new baby, we helped host their party, and the husband was guarding for us at night for a time. We were looking forward to how that relationship would continue to grow, and so it was shocking to find the husband gone when we returned. We had known he didn’t have a steady job and was just scraping by with hauling wood and selling firewood from time to time. But still it seems so huge to us that he would leave to cross the desert through so many dangers we’ve heard about recently, through the chaos of North Africa, through the sinking smuggling ships of the Mediterranean, and leave his wife and young kids for the hope of prosperity after that. This article sums up some of what he is probably facing right now: Death Looms as African Migrants Trek…  It’s heart-wrenching to see the faces of the wife and oldest son as they talk about him leaving, even while they say the family is okay. And it’s a little unbelievable that now they have to go on with scrapping by without a father to help for a while at least. So we pray that he’ll come back safe or be able to find a way to continue to help his family!

The husband as he waits outside the birthing clinic, after his 4th son's birth in April