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***Note: This blog was written a week and a half ago, the first night this happened.
***Note 2: Ladron is Spanish for thief.
 
Here is a new question I’ve never had to ask, and don’t know the answer to now that I’m asking it: How should a Christian respond when she is robbed of material things, and the thief is caught?

Pastor Jose is watching out for us. Though we already knew it, we learned it even more so today.

After leading a morning Bible study with some of the eager youth of the church, we hitched a ride into Leon (about 35 minutes away) with Tommy Gable, our hosting missionary contact. The lure of free internet and, to be honest, ice cream, brought the entire team into town. We had been gone a couple hours when Tommy received a phone call from Pastor Jose that some local teenage boys had been seen coming out of the (locked) medical clinic.

Most of our most valuable possessions were with us (in Leon) at the time of the robbery, but unfortunately some things were taken. When we made it back to Candelaria a few hours later, after an inventory of our things, it turned out the two thieves had made off with a video camera, a digital camera, our team cell phone, an iPod and 1,000 cordobas cash (about $50). None of the items were mine; they hadn’t made it to my more obscure corner, where my iPod was on the counter. One of the ladrones (thieves) had stood on another’s shoulders to climb in through the high crack between the wall and the roof. He left a muddy footprint on a counter. He then let in his accomplice through the back door, which we unfortunately had left only locked from the inside (not deadbolted). After stealing the items, they both left through that door, which was when they were spotted by Pastor Jose.
Below: my “CSI Candelaria” shot of the evidence. Muddy footprint on the counter & floor left by Ladron #1.
 
 

We could see that Pastor Jose and several of the other church members were upset–even more upset than we were. We tried to reassure them that we weren’t afraid at all (which is true). We only felt a sense of loss of trust and privacy; a sense of invasion. After praying and putting our focus again on Christ, we felt reassured… However, here are some of the things going through my mind:

~ I don’t want to be more of a burden to the church than I am a blessing. Now this has happened, the night guard around our little clinica casa has been intensified. This means more members of the church losing sleep at night. And I wonder, are we worth it?

~ How do we as Christians strive to show the love, mercy, and above all–forgiveness–of Jesus Christ while allowing the police to bring a sense of human justice to the situation?  As a team we discussed the fact that we all want to show the love of Christ to these two teenage boys, yet we also need to allow the consequences of what they did to take place. If we did not press charges, that would send the message to the community that they can walk all over the missionaries and take whatever they want–a clearly unacceptable message.

~ By staying at the clinic in Candelaria for three more weeks, as planned, what are we communicating to the community, and are we inviting more thievery? Certainly we want to prevent more thievery, but we aren’t going to leave Candelaria! What is a reasonable effort to put forth to prevent more occurrences yet communicate to the community that we love and want to be a part of them?