ALOT has happened over the last two weeks so here is a rundown of why I have been a little MIA:
Ok, so it was a regular monday night, I was eating dinner with my team and still celebrating the fact that our squad leader, Zack, finally arrived to be with us for the next two weeks. Then all of a sudden the caretaker of our house, Milton, comes to the front door and tells Joe to look out the back window. I’ll never forget Joe getting up, looking out the window and saying “wait I’m looking for a human?!?” In the moment is was kinda funny to me, but if only I knew that night would change what would happen over these next two weeks. So me and the girls hide in the office while the men get up and check out the front and back yard. Now, lets just take a moment and appreciate the men that are in our lives because I have never been more grateful in that moment for not only one, but five men coming to our protection. Praise.
About ten minutes pass by and the coast is clear for us to come out. The guy escaped, but Milton told us that he saw the him at the window of the girls room. Alyssa and I walk in first to check. When we walk in we both realize that my phone and her laptop and laptop case were missing. Those were the things closest to the window. We had only been eating dinner for about 15 minutes until Milton came home so this guy had to have been watching us in order to know when to come. It was kinda surreal what we had just experienced. My iPhone and Lyss’ Macbook were gone in a matter of minutes. We all were a bit shaken up by it, but we knew that God was still in control.
After a while we all start to head to bed and the girls asked if Hunter could sleep in our room for protection (thanks Hunter). Morning comes and I walk into the living room and Zack says that he wanted us as a team to take the morning of ministry off so that we could do some worship and focus our mind and hearts on the Lord. But before we even started, Hunter says his backpack is missing. We look everywhere for it and it is nowhere to be found. And that is when Zane notices his chromebook is gone, Joes Macbook is gone, and Kellys wallet is gone too. We hadn’t realized it, but the man took the key to the back door, came in the middle of the night, around two because Andrew heard something around that time, came into the house, and stole Hunters backpack which had his passport, his wallet, his camera, his bible and journal, and his iPad.
So the situation went from about a four, to a nine in matter of half an hour. We were even more shaken up than before, and now almost everyone had been stolen from. But not just the material things were stolen, our safety and comfort had been stolen as well. Zack made several phone calls and by the end of the day we were all packed up, and heading to Kumakwane where our sister team is staying at. And now we are permanently camped out here.
After processing and experiencing what happened, I learned several things:
1. I really don’t need my phone that much and it is just material
2. No one can ever steal my salvation and that is something I can cling to and have hope in
3. God is super intentional and very purposeful with what he does; he knew this would happen
4. Who knew seeing familiar faces would brighten my day
5. I still have to love the guy that stole from me because God loves him too
6. Even though I could not conrol alot of the situation, I can’t get too mad about it. I can’t change anything that happened or have done anything better. It happened, it’s over, and God is in control and sovereign.
7. Moving from a place with access to wifi to no wifi was actually kinda refreshing and gives me more time to spend time with the Lord and with others
8. My true source of safety and comfort and protection is rooted in the Lord
Something really cool though is that the Botswana police are super kind and have and are doing everything they can to get our stuff back. So far, Hunters iPad and Zanes chromebook have been found, and all the other things that were sold they have a general idea of where its at. They also found the guy who stole all our thing and apprehended him and is in court now and will probably get a minimum of six months. Hunter, Zane, and Zack got to meet the guy that stole all of our stuff and PRAY over him. How cool is that? Man such men of God. They came back saying that they realized that he was just a man who had a bad sin habit. That behind the evil he had done he has a heart and soul too. That we wouldn’t want people to define us by our sin, so why should we define him by his?
Good things can come out of not so good situations. You just have to let God pull it out, and choose to look at the good.
