Reflections:

Yesterday morning marked one week since the break in.... and I’ll admit it, we’ve come a long way and done a lot of things to increase safety here, but I still had a hard time sleeping last night. It surprised me because I’d been sleeping well for quite a few nights now (singing worship songs in my head until I fall asleep, works wonders). And when I woke up this morning and noticed it was 6:15am and the boys weren’t awake yet (they’re usually up by 5:45 or 6am at the latest- yep not so fun)... I started freaking out. I had to know that they were safe. I opened the door to their room, which makes a loud creaking noise and woke them up. I felt bad for waking them up, but was glad to know that they were alive and well and still in their room! 

Big Tractor hogging, um, sharing the road

The day of the break in and for a couple days after we were ready to go home, ready to pack up and get home. We were afraid and felt violated and didn’t see how things could be made right other than going home. We kept praying for guidance and wisdom, as we really didn’t want to live in and make decisions based on fear, but we didn’t want to be foolish either.  We talked about our options, made lists of pros and cons for each and continued to pray about it all. After our Barton Creek Adventure, and thanks to the actions and prayers of all of you back home- things started settling down and feeling more normal. During the daytime it was much easier, although we’d still get hung up on the fact that things were missing and how inconvenient that was. Nights were hard though, it would take me a while to fall asleep and then any little noise would jolt me awake.  Kris was great about getting up and investigating all the “nothings” that I heard during the night. We were able to establish email contact with our families and the business and that alleviated some stress too. Friday evening we decided to do everything we could to make it work. Whether we recovered our stuff or not, we wanted to stick it out and continue our trip. Then not 5 minutes later, Kris went down to take the garbage out and Ruth told him about a girl answering his stolen cell phone! We felt like it was a confirmation that we’d made the right choice. Kris called the girl and they were texting back and forth to arrange a time and meeting place in Belmopan on Saturday. He suggested the police station and she never texted back. So we figured that was that.

Informative sign at the Belmopan Police Station

It seems like much longer than a week has past... it seems like the break in was a month ago. I still feel a bit paranoid though and feel like I can’t share the specifics of all the wonderful ways we have been blessed by so many different people just in case the bad guy is reading this! It has made me more suspicious of everything, but glory to God, it hasn’t stolen our joy! Then Monday while we were at the Iguana Project Ruth got a call on her phone for someone asking for Kris. I took the call and it was the supervisor of the police department in Belmopan. The girl had turned in the cell phone!  He asked if we could come Wednesday morning to Belmopan to meet with him. We met with him today and met the girl too. She’d given them a statement and we were able to ask her some questions too. She said the guy that sold her the phone was Hispanic and didn’t have anything else with him. The supervisor was great! He was even a Christian and is a pastor too! We talked with him for a long time about the robbery and about God too!  We left with our cell phone and will be checking in with the local police tomorrow.

Butterfly in Belmopan

As far as we know there aren’t any leads on any of the other things that were stolen. We also drove around Belmopan and stopped at one computer store and a pawn shop. None of our stuff was there, but the owners took our number and said they’d call if anything turned up. We grabbed quick lunch at a local deli, 2 hot dogs, a chicken burger w/ fries, burrito supreme and two scoops of ice cream was $9.50US. 

Truth of the matter is everyone that we have spoken with or had contact with since entering Belize has been nice, helpful and generous. From the people we stop on the street to ask for directions, to the vendors at the market, to the policemen- young and old, we haven’t had one bad encounter with anyone face to face. I don’t count the robber in any of this because thankfully we didn’t meet him face to face, which also means we didn’t meet his knife either. Big praises to God for letting us sleep through the burglary. 

Monica & her friend Val, playing with the boys

So we’re pressing on! We’re enjoying our simple life here. The weather has been a bit crazy- hot one minute and then dumping rain (the hardest we’ve ever seen) the next, and then the following day is overcast and windy- Ruth says those days are so cold she’s in a sweatshirt and we’re enjoying it in tank tops and flop flops! Kris has even done some computer repair for new friends we’ve met.