What I do every day....April 19, 2025

A well known woman in our neighborhood, a simple woman who cooks and sells hot meals of rice and beans in front of St Luke Hospital,

who is 70 years old

and is the most sought after midwife among poor women in Tabarre

Was shot in the head just down the street on Holy Thursday afternoon.

Her name is Melanie Limose.

She was a peaceful, joyful, non-violent, hard working mother of six grown children and a handful of grandchildren.

The impact blew her brains onto the wall along which she was walking. I know because we were there to cover her body, reverence her body with prayer and to her body to our hospital after the police and justice of the peace gave us permission.

She lay on the road in grotesque twisted form.

Junior and I were called by them embassy security who saw her body on the road after hearing the shots.

All her children were there, wailing and unconsolable, devastated.

We have known them for a long time. We were and are without words, profoundly torn inside.

Today the body of Jesus lies in the borrowed tomb of Joseph of Arimethea,

and the body of Melanie lies in St Luke Hospital morgue,

both bodies awaiting the command of God the Father to rise to new life.

She was assassinated by gunfire from a passing vehicle.

The police station in Kenscoff was under assault by the bandits most of yesterday. There are burned houses and some people were killed.

Let us spend the day in mourning the dead, the many innocent dead, killed by evil that reached even the Son of God on Good Friday.

“In the world you will have trouble, but take courage, I have conquered the world” (John 16:33).

We await in faith, both the dimensions and the timing of the realization of these Holy Words.