Yeah, that just happened

It's Monday morning.  Things appeared to be normal last night.  It was the first night in at least 5 nights that there were no fires lit in our neighborhood (at least from what we could tell).  Last night felt relatively normal.  There were the occasional horns and pots banging, but it was mild compared to this past week.

This was painted in the street a few nights ago
Venezuela S.O.S. Paz (peace)

And then 4:00 am came.  And apparently chaos ensued (I say this because that's when we both woke up to noise).  You see, we live in a neighborhood where a lot of people are really worked up and that means setting up roadblocks, tearing down poles, burning things.  Well the national guard apparently came this morning, I'm assuming to clean up and dispel any protestors.  It's now after 6:30 and it hasn't really died down.

I was able to get some nice cuddle time with Leah during this.  She wakes up to all of the sounds of banging pots and pans and fireworks.  She hates it.  Rightfully so.  But we talked about the Frozen movie and Strawberry Shortcake and then she proceeded to sing all of the Frozen songs.  It was really precious and I couldn't help but smile during it.  And be completely sad and heart-broken that we were even in the situation.

Leah: Why are they making all the noise?
Me: I don't know babe.  Some people are just being a little bit silly.
Leah: They're being really silly.
Me: Yeah.
What else can I say to my three year old?

What does this mean?  Honestly we don't really know.  On both Saturday and yesterday we went out for lunch because some places were open.  We felt so trapped during this whole thing, so it was great to be able to get out and feel like things were getting back to normal.  Some stores were only staying open until 1:00 or so while others (like the mall nearby) had movies showing and closed after 6:00.  So this still isn't normal.

This is a picture from Twitter.  There is an armored
vehicle driving around, which we did see.  But this
picture is from the intersection a block away that
keeps getting blocked by protestors (you can
see a bunch of the stuff in the streets)

Yesterday we heard there was a human chain out on a main street near us.  We did see a lot of people wearing the "opposition" hats going in that direction.  We've seen pictures online of this, but we've avoided those things just for safety reasons.  We also heard that our neighborhood was one of the last areas in Valencia to still be protesting at night. Obviously we can't verify this.

So for now we just wait.  Wait and see what happens next.  Some of the different parts of the university are closed during the next two weeks for a holiday and semester change, so the timing is pretty unfortunate.  We are anxious to see what the coming days and weeks look like.  It's heartbreaking to see this country tearing itself apart.  Broken glass, trash everywhere, debris in the streets, roads still blocked.  It's sad.

This is around 6:30 this morning.  Many more
men are gathered on the street to defend this area

We continue to pray.  To pray that the unrest would lead to a peaceful solution.  That this country, these two groups, would find a way to work together because in many ways they want the same things.  Would you pray for our team and everyone's hearts as we all try to sort through the madness of all of this?  This isn't really what our team needed right now, but this is the hand we've been dealt.  Would you pray for patience and grace for each of us?