of abuse it had taken. The doctors had given him a few months to live and he was shaken. He asked us to pray with him. A few months later he was gone.

I think about the woman who had bi-polar paranoid schizophrenia who was convinced the Mafia was out to kill her. Her family tried to help her but she was always going off of her meds and spinning out of control. We invested in her life. We visited her house. We prayed with her. We hoped to help her by listening to her paranoia and working through her fears logically. One day she was gone.

All of these people were only in our lives for a short time. They moved on. Some to better things, some to worsepeople who would be a part of our fellowship.

That changed with my neighbor Lena. Lena is one of my favorite people. She lives down the street from us. She also works at Nixa Hardware. With the work I do at the farm I am in the hardware store almost daily. Everyone in there knows me by name and I know them. So I get to see Lena on almost every supply run I make.

I met Lena through a string of friends. Her story is a rather incredible one. Lena and her brother were orphans in Russia for years. When they were teens they were sent to the US to an adoption agency in New Orleans. She and her brother were then adopted by a Mormon family in this