Kaleb

This weekend my family and I were in Caldwell at my school for Camp Meeting. We had a wonderful time, but when we came home we were exhausted. Our day changed from happy to worried when mom was listening to all the messages we had received while we were gone. There were messages from my aunt and my grandpa saying that we needed to call one of them as soon as possible. Mom called Grandma and Grandpa but they didn't answer. A little while later she was checking her email and found an email from my uncle on the other side of the family. The email was a forward he had gotten from a co-worker telling the sad story of Gary and Wendy Roberts and the loss of their 4 year old son Kaleb. Wendy is my cousin, and Kaleb's death was the reason for all the messages. Over the nearly 24 hours since we got the news we have learned more about what happened but it's still kind of hard to believe. My cousins are in Chad and it always seemed kind of far away but not any farther than when I was little and Wendy lived across the country. Just since yesterday it seems to me that the world had at least doubled in size and that she is terribly far away. I only met Kaleb once at a family reunion but we would occasionally get emails with pictures and stories of him and his little sister Cherise. Last night Daddy showed me a verse that was special to him when he was in Africa in 1983.

And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or lands, for My name’s sake, shall receive a hundredfold, and inherit eternal life.
Matthew 19:29

It's been a tough couple of days but it's comforting to know that there are great people with Wendy and her family and that God can and will bring good out of this.