Monterrey violence again

You might have seen over the last day or two reports of some pretty horrific violence in Monterrey. When I was browsing my four favourite news sites yesterday, the events on the highway between here and Reynosa (the US border) were the top story on all four.
 http://edition.cnn.com/2012/05/13/world/americas/mexico-remains/index.html?hpt=hp_t3 
or
 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-18052540
 or 
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-05-14/mutilated-bodies-dumped-on-mexican-highway/4008820

 Over the weekend local police discovered 49 mutilated bodies that had been dumped on the side of the road. It seems the work of one of the local cartels, and there is a possibility the victims were illegal immigrants trying to get to the US for work. Whoever they are - they are people, and this is a horrific crime designed to intimidate and scare people.

 But unfortunately, there was something 'normal' about this. Yes, the numbers of people involved was large and the brutality horrible, but it is kindof what we are used to here. It is a sad fact that we are living through a violent time. In the press conference following the discovery, one of the investigators made the point that this is the work of criminals on criminals. There are not innocent people involved in their day to day business. That is true - and despite all the violence and cartel activity, for your average citizen here doing the shopping and going to work - life carries on. And so it does for us - albeit with a lot of heavily armed security driving around the streets.

School is normal, work is normal, church is normal - all the stuff of our life is normal. Its just that we get confronted with these headlines pretty regularly.

 2012 is an election year in Mexico. Obviously, security is a pretty big campaign issue for all groups involved. We need to be praying for wisdom and peace for Mexico, especially in these months of tension.