To catch a thief

This post has been a long time coming. It keeps having little postscripts added to it.  I'm still not sure the story has actually ended!

I used to think, in my pride, that I was a pretty good judge of character.  Someone lying?  I thought I could see right through that.  Who was really needy, who was kind of faking it.  At least once I knew them for any amount of time.

Living in Africa, drenched in another culture, language and innuendos, has knocked my self-confident feet right out from under me.  From the street boys who say they are starving, then scoff at the offered banana, to the people who come to the gate who don't seem so desperate but I find out actually are....I find myself constantly asking the Lord for wisdom.  Which is good, because only God really knows our hearts to begin with and I would hate to remain in my lofty state of Mrs. Know-it-all.

The first time a thief was caught on our block, we found out what it was like to watch a mob that was blood-thirsty to the core.  It made me feel sick for the rest of the day.  In the end, after they had beat the simple man mercilessly and tried to stone him, they decided to run him over with a motorcycle and driving him away in our car was the only thing that saved his life.  One young man in particular was gleeful about hitting him with his grass slasher, "Islam says if you steal, you can lose your hand.  You can go home with one hand today."  When we begged for mercy, they said, "next time it will be you who gets robbed."

The second thief was caught in the afternoon, three guys having taken money and a phone at four in  the afternoon at knifepoint, only one guy having been caught.  Again, the mob arrived within      minutes, and Hannah heard the man saying his last prayers as they sharpened blades and made him      
lay down.  A minute later they dispersed and she was sure they had beheaded him and left him in    front of our gate, but by some miracle they had decided to take him to the police station instead.  Not only would that have been horrifically sad, but evidently his body would have been our responsibility since it was outside our house.

The third thief was our thief.  We had been robbed the day after Stephanie arrived, and had a couple nice chunks out of the concrete to show for it, outside the metal grate and locked door.  Two in the afternoon on a Sunday was evidently not intimidating for these bold guys that hopped into the mango tree, pried the metal door and bashed the other one in.  They relieved us of all the electronics they could find and hopped the back fence when they heard us coming home.

Praise the Lord for nursing babies.  Two weeks later, Lauren, Stephanie and I stayed home from youth group when the rest left, as they weren't feeling well.  I was sitting in the living room with Ben,  
when I noticed some guys outside our fence that were just standing and staring at it.  I got up, looked out the window and to my amazement they were lifting one guy up into the mango tree again.  I told         Lauren to take the baby to the back room and we hurried to the hallway and locked it, as the outside door was already locked.  I whispered to Stephanie who kept her wits about her and asked if I had any kind of weapon besides the pepper spray gun in my hand.  "Well, Dave has a crossbow, but I don't know how to use it."  Practical Steph--"it's ok, I'll just hold it!"  Bless her.  I had already called Dave, who was on his way, and we looked for the thieves on the other side of the house....and waited, and saw one guy on the street, and as best as we can figure, the thieves must have gotten spooked by someone walking on the street and were waiting for a clear road again when Dave and the kids and our night guard showed up along with Bill in another car.  After a chase, our guard caught one guy who had a story that didn't add up, and dragged him back to our gate.  Of course, the mob gathered again, mostly due to the abundance of cell phones and people looking for something to do.    

And the beatings commenced, while Dave called the police and asked them to come before he was beat to death.  And when we thought he was done for, face shoved in a puddle to drown him and sticks breaking over his bloody body, the police did show up, threw his body in the back of the truck and told him to start talking, or they would give him back to the mob and haul him out, dead.  He did   say he had stolen a computer at our house two weeks earlier.

 After the police walked through our house, they went to the station with Dave, where they told him that he had, "made a big mistake."  He should have dragged the guy into our house and put a "little something" in his hand and said that he stole that, so there would be something to charge him for. We didn't feel better after hearing the police say we should have framed the guy.  This was right after our discussion about what the best way is to deal with thieves.  We should use the authority that is in place, right?  That is what we came up with, and I do think that is the best we can do.  So what about    when the police say to just kill the thief, as they often do?   And as horrible as it is to see the mob  beat thieves, what hope of justice can you offer them?  What reason do they have to not handle it themselves when often the police are just paid off? For those of us from the west, we really can't imagine living in a land with little justice. "You white people love to give mercy and  you need to stop!" they said as they beat him mercilessly.

Back to thinking I could spot crooked character....one youth who was present at the beatings, and particularly vicious, really made me angry.  He was out for blood, intent on killing.  He was happy for a chance to beat someone.

And he was the first one to show up when our neighbor's baby died.  Long, too-painful story short, little Junior died in the night and his daddy showed up early in the morning asking Dave for help.  We attended the funeral later on that day, and the youth who delighted in bloodying the thieves worked   just as hard to dig out a grave for this little baby.  He was respectful at the funeral, compassionate, the  first one to help hold the tiny coffin.  If I would have just seen him on that day, I would have said that he was a decent young man, kind.  Getting my head around the contrast of those two scenarios was impossible.

But one thing I do know:  Jesus came for us all.  For the ones who look good, and the ones who look bad, and sometimes the ones who look good have the greater need.  As we often tell our children, we should not be surprised when people who don't know Jesus act like....people who don't know Jesus.  We should make sure that our lives match up with our words that we do know Jesus, that we are the Christ-followers.  We need mercy as much as anyone.  He could just as easily have thrown the first stone at us as at the woman caught in adultery.  We all need this Savior and His mercy.  Every day.