Many of you know that we have had ongoing issues with theft and security issues here at Langano. A few weeks ago, one of our teammates’ motorcycles was stolen by a team of thieves. We were quite confident that the thieves were local, and the community was not willing to help us address the issues. We ended up temporarily closing the clinic in order to put some pressure on the community to help us get this issue under control. The community was furious with us and the government was threatening to put Shane in jail. There was a giant meeting here at Langano on Friday with the government and the community elders (about 90 people). It lasted almost 6 hours. Different people spoke and tried to explain what may have been happening in all these instances. A few of them even publicly accused one of our teammates of stealing the motorcycle himself. Anyway, to make a long story short, the thief (who is from this area like we thought) confessed to his father that same night and on Saturday arrests were being made. Anyway, the community leaders were relieved to be able to have the clinic open again and also mortified that it actually was one of them after all. They have a meeting here at Langano tomorrow to come apologize for accusing us of being the problem. They feel shame because of the way they handled this situation.

All of the community elders will be here at 9 am. Shane was initially hoping that they would come apologize after we leave Langano on Thursday, but then felt like he would be missing a great opportunity to share the gospel with them. These are Mus… men and respected leaders in the community. We are asking you to pray. Shane will, of course, accept their apology, and then he is planning to use the story in Matthew 18:23-35 to talk about forgiveness and about Christ forgiving us. Please pray that the Lord works through this situation in a miraculous way! We would love to see this difficult situation be turned around for His glory! We will keep you posted…