I awoke to the sound of something hard hitting metal,” BANG! BANG! BANG!” I looked at my watch and it was 1 o’clock in the morning. “What is that?” I thought to myself while lying in my warm sleeping bag. All of a sudden I heard a voice off in the distance yelling, “LEDROU! LEDROU!” It was our contact John. – The first day we arrived John informed us that a lot of petty thievery happens in Mozambique particularly in our area near Berra. He said that when thieves come into their compound they typically try to take little things they can sneak through the windows and as soon as they are discovered run away. – “Must be John chasing off some thieves. Maybe I should get up and see if I can help and just make sure everything’s alright.” I thought to myself again. I lied there for a minute debating whether it was really worth getting out of my sleeping bag and putting my shoes on. As I started to get out of my sleeping bag I heard a voice whisper beside me in a horrified tone, “Kyle, should I get out of my tent?” I was the only guy sleeping outside in my tent with 5 other girls sleeping in their tents around me. “No, just stay there and I’ll get up and see what’s going on. Everything’s alright.” I assured them not sure myself what I was about to walk into.
As I stepped out of my tent and zipped it back up I saw a man with a flashlight off next to the house about 50 feet away from me. Almost as soon as I stood up out of my tent he noticed me and shined his flashlight in my face. “GET DOWN!” he shouted. At this point I tried to look and see who it was and noticed what I thought to be an AK-47 in his hands. – One of the first nights we stayed at Kadesh (the ministry site we worked for last month) we heard AK-47’s being fired late at night and John told us that those shots came from the police who were shooting at a man running away from them. All police in Mozambique carry fully automatic AK-47’s and we were informed that the police were very corrupt and if given the opportunity would try to rob you blind. – So after seeing the AK-47 I assumed that these guys were cops chasing down a thief and John was helping them. “GET DOWN ON THE GROUND OR I KILL YOU!” The voice shouted at me again. So, I sat down on the ground. “Well if there cops I don’t want to get shot and had better just do what they say to get out of their way.”
Two men came over to me and started asking me, “YOU HAVE LAP TOP? YOU HAVE MONEY? GIVE OR I KILL YOU!” “Crap! These cops are trying to hustle us and rob us!” I thought to myself again. “No, I have no laptops or money.” I lied. The man with the flashlight went behind me and put his hand down on my left shoulder holding me down while the second man held a pistol to the back of my head and said, “You move I kill you!” as he began to frisk me and touch me inappropriately.
After frisking me the man walked over to one of the girls’ tents and flipped it over shouting, “GIVE ME MONEY OR I KILL YOU!” The man who was behind me took his hand off of my shoulder and disappeared into the darkness. – Now before this point I was still focused on doing whatever the “officers” said because I didn’t want to get thrown in jail or killed for coming against a “man of the law”. But after seeing the guy flip over my squad mates tent all deals were off the table and he wasn’t about to hurt any of the girls while I was around. – As I got up to chase after the guy, John came around the corner screaming like a wild man and chased the guy away. Now on my feet I decided to go check on the 5 girls and make sure they were all alright. As I walked closer to Julie Dickey’s tent I noticed that she was talking to someone. As I approached I heard her say, “it’s one in the mornin’! What do you want? No I don’t have a laptop or money! I’m in a tent! Go away.” Realizing that Julie was facing an attacker I noticed the stick and flashlight in his hand and it hit me. “These guys aren’t cops!” The AK-47 that I thought I had seen was actually a stick with a bag tied to the end of it. Once all of this registered in my brain I started to go confront the guy and get him away from Julie. However, the trusted dog, Bailey, beat me to him.
As soon as Bailey got to this guy’s feet he took off for his life. Running behind the house he looked back for a half second to see where the dog was and BAM! He ran straight into a tree. Struggling to get up off of the ground before the dog could attack again he began to swing his stick back and forth at Bailey’s face. “What do I do?” I thought scared to death. Then all of a sudden something inside me exploded and the Holy Spirit filled my being. “I bind you in the Holy Spirit and command you to get off of this property now!” I said to the thief. As soon as the words came out of my mouth the thief dropped the stick and vanished into the darkness.
Although I wanted to chase after the guy I knew it would be better to make sure the girls were safe. Walking back to where the tents were my team mate Heather was getting out of her tent screaming at me, “KYLE! KYLE! THEY TOOK JULIE!! THEY TOOK JULIE!!” Fear raced through my being as I looked around for Julie. “I’m right here!” Julie’s voice spoke out next to her tent. – looking back now I figure that the thieves made a great decision by not trying to take Julie. She would have kicked their butts and made them wish that they had never been born!
Relieved that everyone was alright I walked over to Heather’s tent and got the taser-gun from her. Unfortunately it was dead, but still could be used as a stick, so I decided to take it with me as I ventured around the house to see if everyone else was okay and what exactly was going on. As I rounded the house I heard this voice above me shout “Hey you!” Looking up I saw Slui standing in his window on the second story, a good 20 to 25 feet above me. “Catch me!” he shouted and before I had a chance to respond Slui was halfway to the ground. I barely caught him with one arm as Slui landed on his feet and just as soon as he had jumped was he gone again off to chase down the thieves.
Now I was rounding the front of the house when from behind me two or three of the thieves came running and passed me as they tried to escape the mob behind them. – You see the boys, who lived on the first floor of the house, devised a plan when they awoke to the thieves and decided that they were going to attack the thieves and chase them off of the property. – I followed the mob hoping I would be of some help. All of a sudden one of the thieves tripped over the volleyball line, which slowed him down enough for one of the boys to tackle him down to the ground. It was over for this guy after that as the other 20 boys and John tackled him and hog tied him up.
John and a few of the older boys were carrying the thief back to the house while the boys were beating him (justice in Mozambique is much different from that in the states and the people often times have to take things into their own hands for things to actually get done). Rage filled my heart as I realized that this guy that we had caught was the same guy that frisked me and flipped over one of the girls’ tents. This guy not only invaded my personal space and home, but threatened me and my family…I wasn’t about to just let this guy walk free. I wanted to give this guy a good hard smack with the cane I had in my hand. – This is one of the lowest points I have ever come to in my life and I am quite ashamed of it.
As the boys brought the guy back to camp and tied him to a tree, the neighbors came and started questioning the guy and beating him for answers. John tried to call the police, but one phone was disconnected and they weren’t answering the other one. John’s goal then was to keep the guy alive until they could take him to the police station until morning. The neighbors at first wanted to poor gasoline over the thief and light him on fire, but we were not about to let that happen. So instead John just allowed them to question the guy in their own way as long as they didn’t kill him.
Sitting there I watched them beat this man for hours on and off. I won’t go into the details, but it was a gruesome site to see. Watching this go down all I wanted to do was stop them and my heart filled with sorrow and remorse for this man and the anger that I had against him when he was caught. Yes, this man was a thief and even according to the Bible we can justify the right to kill him. But the way I see it is that Jesus has given us the ability to forgive and give grace and if it wasn’t for that grace I wouldn’t be here today. It was about 3½ years ago that I, too, was a thief – caught for stealing 2 DVD’s from my employer. I wasn’t beaten and gasoline wasn’t thrown on me as a threat to be burned alive for what I had done. God literally came down into the pit I had thrown myself in and rescued me from a dark life that was never mine to live. Why should we punish this man for committing the same crime? I will never forget watching this man being beaten, and I regret not stopping them from hitting him and showing him the grace of our Father.
It turns out that this thief was a leader of a gang that had been raping, plundering, and murdering people for the past decade. We found witchcraft and drug paraphernalia on him. This man had been caught up in a dark life. As morning came John sent Slui and a few of the other boys to drag him on their bikes in a handmade trailer all the way to the police station. The thief made it to the police station alive, but I heard he didn’t look the same as when he left.
Shortly after they took the thief to the police we found a gun buried in the ground where the thief was tied up. The gun was jammed and had been fired. This was the same gun that was pointed at the back of my head, but I have a feeling that it was jammed before then. One of the boys shared a story of that night later that day. He said that he never really believed in God until that night because a man with a gun pointed it at his head and said that he was going to kill him. The boy prayed to God and asked him for help and the boy said the gun jammed when the man pulled the trigger. How awesome is our God? I mean really? HOW AWESOME IS OUR GOD?!
