How do you respond?

Yesterday morning I went to the staff meeting, and heard some news which was heart breaking. What makes it worse is knowing you cannot really do anything about it, my heart broke for the community around me. Here is what happen on the day/evening of the 7th December ::

There is a little yellow bus that does the bus route in the slum, it is always over crowded and doesn't always feel the safest, well on the Tuesday evening the breaks failed, and a little boy, that someone had worked with in the Lighthouse last year was hit. The boy died. But then what happened was people started to beat up the bus driver to take revenge for the life that was lost...even though it was a complete accident. I saw the bus driver run down the hill with blood on his back in pure panic and got into a cab, saying they were going to kill him.

A guy that  I work with found out his teacher (from university) was stabbed outside his own classroom as one of his students did not like his grades. The teacher was murdered and other students also saw this happen, so a lot of people are now in shock, and grieving.

We also heard news about a cousin of a girl in one of the groups here. Her cousin who was 3 years old was left in his house alone and some how managed to set it on fire...luckily a neighbour was able to rescue the boy but the whole house and everything in it was destroyed.

We heard about the effects of the masses amounts of rain we have had here - a house collapsed in the slum, no one was hurt. But it is likely more houses will break/collapse due to the rain.

Finally we also were told about the amount of shooting going on in the early hours of the morning in the slum...even the residents said it is getting more like Rio slums...the slum has not been like this for years.

So how do you respond?
I have never really heard about so much violence, especially in the area that I live. There is a real atmosphere of violence and revenge. I did the only thing I thought I could do in this situation - that is far bigger that we could solve, it needs real intervention - I prayed. The community is broken and in need of being healed and restored, it needs peace and love towards others. So please join me and pray...