Tia came wandering into our house again yesterday. She is our 72 year old neighbor who lives in a little shack of a house next door. In her hands was the skeleton of a broken umbrella that she was wanting Tony to "fix". She showed me how she had figured out exactly what was wrong with the dangling wires and how "this" needed to be "here." Then she mentioned to me that she couldn't do it because her finger hurt.

She showed me her pinky that had a pretty nasty cut that was old, dirty, and swollen. I called Tony out to look at her umbrella while I went to get some first aid. Tia babbled out numerous tales in Guarani while I took her dirty, wrinkled hand in mine and began to pour peroxide on it. Understanding about two thirds of her words, I listened to the story of her regrettable family situation.

The peroxide bubbled away and dripped to the floor. She talked more, I listened more, and it bubbled more as I looked into her aged, wrinkled, face with unkempt graying hair pulled messily back into a pony tail. Her one tooth bobbed up and down as her mouth spit out her woes and cares.

The peroxide bubbling away the dirt and infection is like the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives. Even more than what I was presently doing, I wanted to be pouring "holy peroxide" onto her wounded life, to bring spiritual healing, cleansing and wholeness as the infectious gossip and painful lies of her family dripped to the floor.

That is why we are here. There are so many wounds around us in San Francisco, so many torn lives. We long to see the wounds "bubbled" away by the cleansing of the Spirit as people accept the healing that Jesus offers them. Will you pray with us that eyes will be opened to the abundant, whole, healthy life that God has for those who are willing? And will you continue to pray that we will learn to speak Guarani well enough to share these important truths with the people of San Francisco?

As I put ointment and a band-aid on Tia's finger, I hoped that just listening and fixing her umbrella had been one small bubble of "holy peroxide." And I pray that the gospel of Luke that I gave her would find its way into the infected life of her family and be another bubble. In the meantime, she went home with an umbrella skeleton just a little bit better off than when it came.