INVASION

At least that's what we would call it in the US. Last Saturday morning at 3:25am, I awoke to see someone rummaging through our living room/kitchen area with a flashlight. My first thought was that Ethan was trying to find something before heading out to take pictures early in the morning, which he often does around 5:30am.  

Wait, it's 3:25am!

That's not Ethan then.

This is not good (I start yelling and stumbling out of bed).

If you've woken up in a potentially life-threatening situation (at least that is what some primitive part of your brain is telling you, you are in), then facing an intruder half-asleep doesn't leave you with alot of "if-then" scenarios that tell your still sound asleep frontal-lobe what you should do next. I started shouting, not realizing that the implication of telling a thief to go away is inviting them to leave WITH whatever stuff of YOURS they already have.

This thief doesn't expect someone to wake up, so he takes off across the patio, onto the first balcony, across to our entry stairs, and down to the street. I run back to get the keys, run outside and see no one. I drive around our small town looking (and what would have I had done if I had found someone?), but there is nothing. When I return to the house I notice that the thief left Colleen's purse in the driveway, along with an electronic picture frame that he didn't have time to grab. Inside her purse are STILL our passport cards, visa cards, credit cards, ID's etc. Only the cash is gone, an older phone, and her prescription sunglasses (not the easiest thing to sell, I would think). WOW.

Before moving here, we read plenty of books which described late-night burglary as common in Mexico (it is), but when you actually see someone INSIDE your house it adds a dimension of reality that motivates you to check all the locks, install some very prickly plants at easy access points, motion lights, etc. And then, we pray. Actually, we've always prayed since landing here that God would protect us, and I believe he did. If the thief had not been greedy and had only taken Colleen's purse and ran, I would have never woken up when he came back the second time for more stuff. We would have been gloriously inconvenienced with loss of bank cards, visas, passports, ID's . . . etc. Instead, the thief returned, I woke up, and he made out with $250 in cash, a cell phone, and a pair of scratched sunglasses that are worth nothing to anyone except Colleen.

Our Mexican friends here had various responses from filing a police report (we did), to calling all of them, next time, so that they could hunt down the thief with shovels and bricks. So the next morning, after my 3:25am wake-up call, I showed up at the Ministerio Publico at 10am only to be told that the person who takes reports is not there. After buying prickly plants (4 large agave plants, 4 large fired pots, 4 iron pot stands, and soil for less than $100USD!), I return at 1pm. The office is totally closed. A helpful traffic cop says that they usually don't close until 2pm, but . . . they do open from 6-10pm. I return at 6:30pm just in case they decide to open late. One woman is alone in the office and after some help from another traffic cop (their offices are in the same building) she reluctantly lets me in. "Why didn't you come earlier so we could get fingerprints?" she says. "Funny you should say that," I reply. For the next 2 hours, she carefully records my report on her manual typewriter. I snap a picture while she is away making copies of the report, none of which I receive. She tells me that she'll be at my house at 11am the next morning (Sunday). We're ready by 10am. 11am nothing, 12pm, 1pm, 2pm, 3pm, 4pm still no one. At 5pm we decide to head to the beach. When we return our neighbor says, "Hey, the police came 5 minutes after you left!". I'm still trying to track them down. Two nights ago our neighbor was broken into. The thief cut a line down the screen door and helped themselves to the guests' cell phones (it's hot here, so their sliding door was open for ventilation). I installed a photo eye that I've wired to a wireless doorbell to tell us when someone is coming up the stairs.

The desk of the licenciada at the Ministerio Publico.

Despite the frustration of loosing a few things, our response to this little incident has actually connected us to more people here in our little town and in the larger town close by. We have reflected on how much we value "stuff" versus "people" and are still very thankful to be here.

I just finished reading Richard Wurmbrand's In God's Undergound with Ethan, and we had just read a few nights before, the section below. Let the radical nature of this rabbi's concern for a person's soul reset your love for people, even the people who might seek to hurt you or steal from you.

"I answered by telling the story of a famous rabbi who was living in the Ukraine in Czarist times, and was once called upon to give evidence in defense of a follower. The noble looks and spirituality of Rabbi Hofez Haim impressed the court, but the old man refused to take the oath; he was unwilling, he said, to involve God's name in his evidence. The prosecution protested, "We must have a guarantee that he is telling the truth." The defense lawyer rose. "Your honor," he said, "may I mention something that will prove the character of my witness and show that we can accept his evidence, even if, for religious reasons, he cannot be put on oath? Rabbi Hofez Haim often goes from shop to shop collecting money for the poor. One day a thief knocked him down and snatched the purse containing the collection. The rabbi was upset, not so much at the loss of the money, which he instantly decided to replace from his own small savings at home, but at the harm done to the thief's soul. He ran after him calling, "You have no guilt before God; it is my money and I give it to you freely! The money for the poor is safe at my house! Spend what you have taken with a clear conscience."

How concerned are we about another's soul? Are we concerned enough to ignore whatever losses we incur for the sake of another's soul?