I have now joined the elite ranks of world racers who have had something significant stolen from them on this trip. Yeah, you read that right – my camera and pocket pc and headlamp got swiped out of my backpack while we were waiting for our bus from Costa Rica to Panama. That’s a lot of stuff. I keep trying to remember it’s just stuff, but it’s so much more than that – my pictures from the whole year (luckily most of them are saved other places, but I’m not sure if I ever got those “last few” off my memory card), music my brother sent me for Christmas (including some Spanish Christian music that I had just discovered), the blogs I’d started writing that hadn’t been posted because it just wasn’t the right time or I wasn’t done with them, most of the pictures I have of my family…this “stuff” was a lot of my life…and now it’s gone. I’ve had thoughts running through my head all weekend about what I should do or if I should try to replace things or if I should just “suck it up” because it’s just “stuff.”
As it just so happens, though, I have amazing parents who love taking care of me and blessing me, and Aaron has amazing parents who are actually on their way to Panama for a visit as I am typing this blog…and between them they have managed to get me a new camera and it’s coming down tonight! So if this was a test of my faith, or God’s way of seeing how attached I am to “stuff,” I probably didn’t handle it all very well…but He is choosing to bless me anyway. God is good, even when things are not so great.
And a random side note: one of my teammates, Traci, who had stuff stolen got an email about it potentially being found today – God really is good!
