Right visitors, wrong time

Well, this is a scoop. Not the kind of scoop I am delighted to report, but a scoop nonetheless, since the February update is a long time coming.

We got word this afternoon that there was another break in, this time in the garage. I was out running when the call came in, so Valerie got Oscar on the phone, fresh back from vacation by a matter of hours, and he headed up to assess the damage.

No fires, and it appears not everything was taken, although since he has been gone and I have been cleaning/arranging, we will not know the extent of the loss until I head up tomorrow morning.

Apparantly this time they broke/smashed, somehow entered through the door near the clinic, where the stairs are (for those of you that know)...meaning they broke the intial lock, the board bracing the door, and the outside padlock. Obviously they were highly motivated to get in.

Ironically I wish I was upset or burning with something, but hopefully I have a somewhat more mature take on the matter and just pray for those that did the breaking that God would touch their hearts, as there is no lasting forgiveness except that through Him.

And for those that do not know...Grissom and his team will not be by to dust for prints and the like. Here you just resign yourself to the fact that you need to better protect property that is highly valued, even if not of not a high worldly value, lest it get taken. And no one was hurt, so that is good news. In another bit of balancing the bad news with "it-could-be-worse", remember that somewhere North of 90% (some say 95%) of murders here are never prosecuted. Not sure what made me think of that...hopefully I am not getting the gift of prophecy, but if I am, then "que Dios hará, hará", a take on the famous phrase this one meaning, "whatever God will do, He will do." (note those that love to pick on Spanish that the phrase in Spanish is much shorter to say than English).

This has strengthened our resolve in finishing the wall surrounding the property. Ironically with half the wall completed, it creates pockets of places where one can hide, and thus we are hoping to double or triple our efforts not worrying about the short term downsides (i.e. money) to finish the most critical parts of the wall in order to dissuade (notice the word prevent is most glaringly not used here) such opportunists in the future. If the wall was done, I am relatively confident the robbery today would not have happened. But....all in God's timing.

Rejoice with us, obviously not in the loss, but in the fact that we can be sure of our hope is not in what we have or lose but in Christ Jesus who never leaves us!