The Following Post was written by a dear friend of ours while she was visiting a country in Central Asia.... Take a minute to think about how others experience life. (some names have been changed, because I didn't ask before posting this)

It must be about 33 or 34 degrees. Snow is falling gently, melting as soon as it touches down. I think there is at least 3 inches of mud everywhere. We pull off the road and go up a deeply rutted drive toward bombed out buildings. There is a group of grim-faced men standing to greet us. Children with hair standing on end, faces, hands and feet black with grime peek around their legs to get a better look. Stoic-looking women stand silently in a group at a distance. Watching. Waiting.

We know we're here to distribute of 5 kgs of butter and 50 kgs of flour to an IDP camp of 45 families. We have no idea exactly what that means until this minute.

As we try to navigate getting out of the vehicles without stepping into puddles over our ankles, feeling like the mud is up to our knees we see the families waiting for us. We're struck dumb by their living conditions.

In front of us is a long narrow building with a hall down the center and rooms off to each side. No glass in the windows. No doors in the doorways. William asks me if I want to go in and I don't. Oh, I so badly don't, but something – someone – greater than I propels me forward and I am putting one foot in front of the other in spite of myself. I can't get in easily as it's about a 2 foot step up. My skirt is too narrow and the slope has become a muddy shute. William takes my hand and hoists me up. I duck under a plastic bag for a door and I'm in. It's very dim but I can see enough to side step the feces on the floor. Looks like a child with a sick stomach didn't quite make it outside. It smells dirty and wet. The cement floor is slick with mud and condensation.

We walk down the hall and are invited into one of the rooms where a teenager is lying under thick covers. His mom begs us to take a look at him.

His bladder is emptying through a whole in his side, which is covered with a plastic shopping bag to keep him dry. His ultrasound results are thrust into my hand by his desperate looking mother, all his meds brought out for us to see. I ask if this is a recent injury and his mom says he was born this way. He's 15. In 15 years no one has been able to help this boy?

They show us the firewood we brought last week, thanking us profusely. It's not enough to last more than a week or so more. I ask if we can pray with them and they eager. I have no idea what I prayed.

We walk out through another "door" passing through a room with another family. Babies are sitting on the floor wet and crying. I'm bent on escaping and duck out the low door just as quickly as I can.

Outside all I can do is look at William who is looking back at me with eyes equally as sad. We don't say a word.
The distribution is finished now and our guys stand in a huddle along with the men of the camp and talk. Mohammad Khan exhorts the young men to go out and find jobs. We listen to their needs: running water, latrines are the most basic. Now they must cross a major highway and walk up the side of a mountain to a public pump and carry water home.

There are some soldiers standing in the crowd (this is a military installment – once a training camp for Taliban – we bombed it) and we don't know the families that well so we decide to tell them that we are praying for them but not to pray with them at that moment. They are eager for our prayers.

We get back into our vehicles. William is driving ours. He gets behind the wheel and just sits there as if he's forgotten what he needs to do next. It's deadly silent, if we talk its in hushed tones. William looks over his shoulder at me in the back seat and asks me to pray. God have mercy on this camp is about all that would come out. I'm glad the Spirit intercedes for us.

I just want someone to hold me tight and by osmosis take away some of this profound grief. I always thought that hell was hot. Now I think it must be cold, muddy, wet…