If evil is the opposite of good, there is a durable evil in Myanmar, where a totalitarian government does not appear to serve its people, a horrible Hurricane Nargis took the lives of 140,000 less than a year ago (made worse by the paranoid malpractice of the isolationist government) and most prospects for the future are bleak.

Here's NPR's Myanmar story from a below-the-radar personal visit by journalist Michael Sullivan.

What if we were to pray for Myanmar over the long haul? What if we were to pray for change, to insist that God bring change and hope to the people of this suffering nation? If we were to pray such a thing, it would need to allow for the fact that God has always gone before our prayers and is already advocating for people in need, made in God's image but suffering. God's already working before we arrive, before we care. The biggest sacrifice has been already spent, and even God's Spirit groans deeply in prayer wherever there is need for transformation and restoration.

But such prayers also need to acknowledge if they're honest that the all powerful God has not prevented calamity which could have been prevented, and loss which has been suffered. God has some purposes beyond the eradication of selfish behavior and its consequences; beyond the seemingly random selection of natural disasters and extreme weather, or even the whims of tyrants.

I don't understand it, but I do believe God's purposes are threaded through all of this. And even so, I pray against the suffering of people who I believe God deeply loves, every one. I pray for light, for the church of Myanmar to not only survive but to thrive with good news and abundant life and fruit.

How Long, Lord? When will your righteousness come?

A 19-year-old woman rocks a 3-month-old baby in the temporary shelter... blue plastic sheeting wrapped around four poles, topped with a crude thatch roof...

When asked how much it would cost to build a new house, she responds, about $500. And how long will it take to come up with that amount? About 10 years, maybe more, she says.