Have we become numb to respond to a call for help because there are too many who need help too often?

Last week I could not speak of what was happening here.  It did not involve anyone in my family... nor did it involve any of the women who are or have been in the Mountain Ministries Women of Faith Program.

Thurs morning around 10am Tad and Connie got a call asking them to help with a situation with a pregnant woman whose boyfriend had left her.   When they arrived they realized that the police and ambulance were needed. She had blood on her. She was not making much sense. There were bloody towels in her room. They called 911. An ambulance took the woman to the Longview hospital. The question was where was the baby. Still inside her?   The police roped off the farm yard as a crime scene.

All the vehicles were included in the crime scene.

They called Lou to come and get them since they did not have access to their cars.

By noon everyone was back here but it wasn't until 10pm that we found out that the baby boy was born via c-section and was okay. Having some issues but really doing okay.  Baby's weight was around 5-1/2 lbs.  The Baby is now in state custody.  The mom is in hospital for mental evaluation and the father has been located.

We were all in shock well through Friday.  I could have used a hug from the outside... but ....  How do you even begin to talk about this to someone not in the middle of it??

What I've come away with ... is this.  All of us here had the same thought when that call came in... "here we go again".  For months this couple had been housed by someone that felt sorry for their situation.  Back in October they were living in a tent... winter coming and she was pregnant. The boy friend was on military disability for PTSD. They were both doing drugs.  A well meaning person took them off the street thinking they just needed to "see the light".   Over the past four years this well meaning person had tried to help half a dozen - always ending in some situation where he needed to call Tad and Connie for help.   They promise to abide by rules.... they bend the rules... they disregard the rules and then they become a threat to this person and he needs help to get them out.   

We had become too numb and too indifferent to his call for help because of all these past episodes.  He would not take advice from Tad and Connie when the situation was beginning.  In the end each situation was over the top.  This new call for help was just one more of the same... or so we thought.  But it wasn't.  This involved a tiny baby's life and that was the wretched part of it all.

So the call came in for help... and we didn't spring into action....  this time we finished our Thursday morning breakfast meeting and then they drove out there...  Wasting at least 45 minutes before arriving at his place.  His call for help was not urgently made because at that point he had not been in her room. She was crying and distraught when he first saw her that morning. She said the boyfriend had left her. She had some dried blood on her hand and some blood on her clothes but NOTHING to make him realize this was life and death.

What was not obvious to him should have been obvious to us but we had become numb and maybe even indifferent to "another problem"... another "call for help".    We all went to the Lord asking for His forgiveness for that.