Unplanned move...

I’m not quite sure how to begin this – so much has happened this last week. And I can't tell it all in this one blog. So this will be part 1 with the second part of the week to follow in a day or two. There’s a lot to tell and I don’t want to leave out too much for reasons that I hope will become obvious later on. If you have read the most recent postings here, you know that while we were at church on Sunday morning, September 28th, our home was broken in to and we were robbed. Our experience with the local police was less than satisfying and we quickly ascertained we would never see our stolen possessions again. We stayed with Susanna until we were able to hire a day guard. Although we had either the housekeeper or the gardener there in the mornings and a guard during the afternoon, we still had a sense of uneasiness that would not go away. We had been assured by virtually everyone that was a normal reaction to an abnormal situation. My feeling was that nothing about any part of that experience felt “normal”.

We had added some additional locks and door bars to all the exterior and interior doors – with the landlord paying for some of the security additions and with us paying for the remainder. With the mornings being covered with a housekeeper or gardener and the afternoons covered with a day guard and a night guard coming sporadically, we really felt like we were as secure as we could be.

Last Sunday, we went to church feeling fairly confident that there wouldn’t be a problem. Our day guard, Jamil, was on duty. He and Enrique were scheduled to do a weekly rotation with one working nights at Susanna’s while the other worked days for us. They were to switch duties every week. Usually, Freddy, our gardener, is off on Sundays but our landlord had asked him to work for him that day as he was wanting some trees trimmed up on his property. Freddy had agreed to work that day as he wanted the extra income. We were able to speak to him prior to leaving for church and both Jim and I felt badly that Freddy was working on a Sunday…we wanted him to be at his own church. Thankfully, God wanted him there.

After church, one of the missionaries we had just met came up to Jim to talk with him about some opportunities for us to help with an agricultural project at one of the rural schools. He asked us to pray about it and to get back with him. Since it was a nice day, we decided to drive out to the area to look at the community, which is about 17 km outside of Managua. It was a very scenic drive and we were enjoying the easy pace of a quiet Sunday together.

On the way home, we began discussing what we would do if the robbers should return and we thought it wouldn't hurt to go ahead and start looking at some other neighborhoods. We began turning down streets that had signs posted with houses for rent. Nothing looked very appealing. Places were either way out of our league price-wise or way below what we felt would be safe. But since we didn't have any reason to have to move, then we didn't really care one way or the other...at that point, it was just good, cheap entertainment. We had no idea how quickly things would change for us.

We were just about ready to head home when we saw one more sign. We turned and drove by the house, which was connected to others and looked really small. We decided to continue to drive on back up in to an area which sat behind that place. It was in an area we had never been before and it was more out of curiosity than anything else that we continued to drive back up the hill. After a few twists and turns, we ended up in the most amazing neighborhood filled with grand houses...actually, many would probably qualify as mansions here in Nicaragua...they are beautiful! We drove on through the neighborhood, obviously not looking as potential renters, but rather, plain ol' Sunday lookie-loos!

It reminded me of when I was a kid and my folks would go for Sunday afternoon drives through Mission Hills, which at that time, was a very wealthy part of Kansas City, home to people such as the Stover family of Russell Stover candies, the Hudsons who owned Hudson oil company,
Ewing Kauffman, who owned the Royals, and such. I wondered, just as I did as a child, what it must be like to live in such a magnificent house. I also remember thinking if the majority of Nicaraguans must wonder what it would be like to live in a house like mine...a house that I considered "normal". But that train of thought was quickly brought to an end as we saw a gate with a sign indicating that the house was for rent. We laughed as we approached the house, knowing full well that we would never be able to afford a house in that neighborhood.

When we pulled up in front of the gate, we saw a very modest home nestled down the hill. We both were shocked that it was so small in comparison to all the other houses in the area. But even so, it had a beautiful view. We knew it was a house that would most likely be out of our price range. The house looked nice enough, not fancy, but liveable...but the most attractive feature was the concrete security wall with the concertina wire on top... it surrounded the yard. Jim asked me if I wanted to write down the phone numbers listed on the sign. I told him no but then just as he started to pull away, I said that on second thought, it couldn't hurt to write it down and that maybe someday, we could have Susanna call and see just how much they were asking for rent.

We left the neighborhood and started for home. We saw one more sign and turned down that road. Our cell phone rang. It was Susanna and she had just received a call from Jamil, who was acting as our day guard that week. The robbers had returned. We immediately turned around and headed for home. Evidently, while Freddy was next door trimming the bushes for Don Carlos, a man walking by on the upper road, made a comment to Freddy that he didn't need to bother with trimming the bushes as they could already see our house without any problem. The comment made Freddy uneasy and he kept watching the man walk on up the road.

Jamil was working down in front of the house at the coconut trees and was unaware of the man or his comment. It was time for Freddy to leave for the day and as he was getting ready to go in to Don Carlos' house to get cleaned up, he heard some noise at the back of our house. He walked back to our back yard, with his machete in hand, and discovered two guys were trying to break in our back door again. Although they didn't have machetes with them, they threatened Freddy as they knew they had him outnumbered. Freddy wasn't sure if the first man who had made the comment a bit earlier was close by or not so he yelled for Jamil. Jamil grabbed his machete and came running. The robbers evidently hadn't seen him down by the coconut trees and were surprised that they now had two "armed" men with which to contend.

The robbers took off running, one through the overgrown field next to our house and the other one down through the Deep Dark Woods, but not before they told the boys they would be back. The boys chased them as far as they could but didn't want to leave the house unguarded in case the guys were "bait" to lure the boys away from our house. They returned with Freddy calling the police and Jamil calling Susanna. Freddy then went to tell Don Carlos what had happened. His theory was that since the robbers were unsuccessful getting in this time that they "probably" wouldn't try it again. Freddy and Jamil didn't agree...neither did we.

When Freddy called the police, they told him at first that they didn't know where we lived. He gave them directions and then reminded the police that we had been broken in to just two weeks before. The dispatcher said that they remembered the case and that they would send someone out as soon as they could. They never did come!

But thankfully, Susanna did. After a few minutes conversation with the boys, getting the story all over again, she asked what we wanted to do. I told her I didn't think we could keep living being held hostage to our house, always afraid to leave and now, not even sure we could stay without fearing the return of the robbers. We had just found out a few days before that the barrio just west of us had a lot of gang activity going on and that a car had been stolen just two nights prior. We also had discovered that the people before us moved out because they had been broken in to three times with the last time happening at night, while they were there. That little fact must have slipped our landlord's mind when we asked him specifically if the neighborhood was safe or not. We decided we needed to move.

That was all Susanna needed to hear. She had told us just two days before that if we ever felt like we needed to move out of that house, that hers was always open to us. We had no idea, nor did she, that we would be accepting that invitation 48 hours later. I went inside to pack some clothes and Susanna started to make a phone call. She told me she was going to have her night guard come and stay the night at our house so that it wouldn't be left empty. Within a few minutes, she came in and told me that she had called some of her/our friends, and that they were on their way over with their cars, a truck and a trailer and that we were going to be moving out as much as we could that afternoon. I was floored!

Within an hour, we had 11 people there, all brothers and sisters in Christ, both Americans and Nicaraguans, all segments of society represented and all who came just because they heard we needed help. No one said they wish they could help but they had other plans. No one wanted to know who else was going to be there. No one grumbled or complained. They just came because we had a need. They worked side by side...the gardener and the international banking computer programmer, the pilot and the night guard...it didn't matter, it was the body of Christ working and I have to tell you, it worked beautifully.

What a humbling experience and blessing that was...and...it was wild! There were people in every part of the house, moving furniture out, packing totes, emptying cabinets, carrying boxes. Every time I would start out the front door with something, someone would take it away from me, all the time, reassuring me things were going to be okay. Even when the heavens opened up and the rains came down, the words of reassurance never stopped. Nor did the people working. They just kept it up. The truck and trailer got stuck in the mud on our road, the boys jumped out and worked it out. The trailer wouldn't fit under the metal gated arbor going out on to the main road because of the furniture and refrigerator being too tall in the back...the boys unloaded the trailer, pulled it through the gate and re-loaded it...all in the rain. And no one griped, whined or complained. It was the most amazing day. Two minions of Satan came to do his work...they were met with machete-wielding angels and a legion appeared. I don't think I will ever forget that day or that move. At least I pray that I don't.

I loved that house and I hated to leave it...leaky roof, noisy bats and all. I loved the terrace and all my plants. I loved the openness of the house, the enclosed laundry area, the woodwork and the large kitchen. I loved the giant showers, the sound of the geckos chirping and the thud of sweet, ripe mangoes falling to the ground. I loved the fullness of the thunder as it would echo through the mountains and the clip clop of the horse carts as they would go by our upper road. I loved watching Orlando's face light up whenever we would greet him...and I loved watching him fight his unseen-to-my-eyes enemies. I think I understand a bit better now what he must feel and why he must fight.

I hated to leave the house, but even more so, I hate it that the robbers won. I hate that they made us feel uneasy in our own home and uneasy away from it. I hate that they took memories and peace of mind. I hate that we felt like we had no other recourse but to move. I hate that I am once again "unsettled"...I want to be settled. I want a place to call home. A place where I feel safe. Where I feel my "things" are safe. That's what I want. I think God wants me to live like Christ. And part of living like Christ is that I can't hold to any "thing" so tightly, whether it's a laptop or a house. I am to hold on to only Him...not the "things" of the world that I seem to think are so important. I say I want to live like Christ until He takes me at my word...and then I want to change my mind. Isn't there comfort in the fact that God doesn't change His?