Living in Fear

11/6/09

This past Monday was our first day of visitations in Kilometer 15 (Tupac Amaru-sorry not to be confused with the dead rapper ;). It was great, we got to go around and just meet people. Our goal was simply to make new friends-no pressure, nada, I was loving it. As we were walking around we came to a brightly colored house, it was a great mixture of pink and teal. I know this would probably be considered an absolutely hideously colored house in the States, but here it was a wonderful change from the plain brown wood ones. As we walked by, an old lady came out and invited us in.

At first, we just kind of talked about every day life and then she went on to tell us about being robbed that day while in town. That then led into her talking about how the day before a girl had been raped out on the main road. I brushed it aside though, thinking a girl had been stupid and out walking by herself. That night though when Mike (another SM) came back and repeated to us once again the story of the girl, and in addition told us about another assault that had taken place out on the main road, I realized maybe it was a little more serious. As Mike went on, I had to admit that I was getting kind of freaked out. Ended up that there had actually been a problem along the road into Tupac for about four to five months now. This time a bunch of guys had put on masks, hid in the bushes and then threw logs in front of motokars. After getting motokars stopped the men would then come out with machetes and guns.

By now, Mike had my full attention. None of the other girls seemed too worried about it (but they also don´t care if they don´t get showers every day :), but I was honestly scared half to death! I even made the serious statement that I might just stay in Tupac the remainder of the six weeks without leaving unless the truck came. Lauren stated that she was not too concerned though, because she felt that God would protect us. That gave me something to think about…but I really didn´t come to a conclusion how I felt about that. We talked to the people back at the base and they said they would also try to come get us in the truck more often. That was that for the time being and nothing else was said.

Well, yesterday was our day off and I really wanted to go back to the base to call my parentals. No truck was coming…I hadn’t fully decided what I thought about this road situation, but the call of the telephone and an oven to bake cookies in was too much to bear. So I found myself in a motokar on the forbidden road. As Lauren and Mindy sat back and enjoyed the ride, I literally prayed the whole way and held tight to my pepper spray (as if I could really do much with it :). As we made it safely to the main road and hopped into a taxi, I let out a huge sigh of relief.

Sometimes I think about all of the risks down here, and I get really paranoid about everything. I get overly freaked out when I see one of the poisonous spiders in our house or have to go outside in the middle of the night to use the bathroom. It makes me want to curl up in a ball and not go anywhere for the rest of the year. But truly, there are just as many risks up in the States as well.

One day when I was working at the hospital before I left, a friend that was a PT asked me why in the world I would go abroad for a year. He thought I was young and it was stupid of me to go and put my life at risk somewhere. I tried to explain to things to him, but he did not seem convinced. A few weeks later though, I was working with the same guy and he brought up the same topic again. This time though, he had a different take. He told me that he had just talked to his brother who had a friend who had been a missionary in Africa for 18 years. For all those years while being in Africa he had never had any safety issues, but then within a month of returning to the States he was robbed and shot.

So really anywhere you go there are safety issues-Africa, Peru, United States…perhaps concerns are just a little different, but the underlying problem still exists. So things aren´t really going to change much when I am done here either. Does that mean I should never get out of bed the rest of my life? I definitely don’t think that is what God wants us to do. God wants us to live life to the fullest and to not live in fear. We need to take daily risks for God and trust that He will protect us. That doesn’t mean we should be stupid, we should just focus on claiming His promises more. I think another part of this is, when things do happen we need to accept them as part of his bigger plan and realize that however long our lives are here, they are nothing compared to our long life we have to look forward to in eternity. If I can bring glory to him during this life here on earth, it doesn’t matter how short my life is here, because the best is yet to come!

“When the righteous cry for help, the Lord hears and delivers them out of all their troubles. The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit. Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of them all.” Psalm 34: 17-19







(Above are pictures of the road to Tupac, motokars in Pucallpa, us celebrating Dane´s bday with Mexican food and a rice crispy cake, and picture of how amazing pinapple season is here!)