The following is an excerpt from an open letter to an Anglican newsgroup from Bishop Leo Frade, Bishop of Honduras, following the devastation in his country from Hurricane Mitch.
Rosa gave her testimony last Sunday. We have a new segment in our service where we let people tell their stories as a form of community therapy. Also we get to find out what great things God has done for us. Several people shared their experience of how God had preserved them and then I saw Rosa getting up and coming to the front. I wondered why? What could she be thankful for? You see, just a few days before, we had buried her 21-year-old son. He was electrocuted as many people were after the floods.
What could she be thankful for? I began to hear her as she thanked us for making it possible to find a coffin, for being there with her at the funeral, to hold her hand. Yes, he was dead but he knew the Lord, she said. He was now gone but he was with God.
It was a simple faith, more pure than any faith I could ever have. She was willing to thank God at all times and not just at the good times when good things happen.
Even with Hurricane Mitch killing her son, she could see that God still reigned.