Thank you very much for your candid comments, and you fit in perfectly with our ministry. We also understand why you feel as you do. But from what you say, you are much more of a Christian, than most of the people who claim to be Christians, because you are doing what Jesus called you to do, and they are not. Just hang in there!
From our own personal experience, we know that God does answer some personal prayers, which seems to be a way of encouraging His workers.
We also wonder why God doesn't end the horrible pain and suffering in the world, now, and we pray about it every day. But the Bible does give us some clues about why:
1. The world seemed to be very much like this before the flood, and from the description, God did wipe out the evil and took the innocent ones home (both humans and animals), but Noah and his family carried the evilness with them into the new beginning, and God said that He would never wipe out the evil in the world as He had done. As a result, God has been allowing the world to live in the evilness of human making.
2. Isaiah's picture of a restored peaceable kingdom tells us that this will happen when the earth is full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. This tells us very clearly that humanity is not nearly as full of the knowledge of the Lord as the vast majority of people think they are. So, the evil and suffering continues.
3. We also believe that Jesus came to restore the earth, but He and His message was also rejected. Even to this very day, we can easily see all of the pain and suffering that is promoted and accepted by the vast majority of churches.
4. Jesus said that we are to be peacemaking children of God, and Paul picks up on this and says that these are the people who will free the whole of creation from its present corruption, but there are still relatively few of us actually working on doing this.
5.Jesus also commands us to be perfect as our Father in heaven is perfect, and to pray for His perfect heavenly will to be done on earth as it is in heaven, and while most people seem to pray this, very few of them actually live as if they mean it.
We sincerely believe that our loving, compassionate, and peacemaking efforts do make a difference: as a witness against the evildoers, as an encouragement to other children of God, and as ones called by God to serve. And in the process, we have witnessed many little miracles that encourage us and show us that a peaceable kingdom is possible in the here and now.
We look forward to hearing from you again.
In the Love of the Lord,
Frank and Mary