Who Took My Shoes???

I can’t believe I haven’t written about this… but at the time it happened, we were traumatized, and in the middle of getting ready to leave the country for a month, and life is just beginning to settle down from all of that… I’m so sorry for being delinquent in sharing my life with you!

Kelli and I thought we lived in a relatively safe neighborhood. There had been a few security concerns in the area, but between the 10-foot wall around our compound and the watchmen who work for us during the weekdays and every night, we thought we were okay. We were wrong. On a Sunday morning in April, we got up early and got ready to go to the 7:30 service at a local church. Now, normally, we took our shoes or sandals off at the front door to keep from tracking sand and dirt into the house, and sometimes a stack of shoes would pile up. We got ready to leave and went out to put our shoes on, and they were gone. Like, 10 pairs! It was still early in the morning, and our brains weren’t quite functioning yet, so we checked inside and on the back porch to see if we had put them somewhere else, but they were nowhere to be found. About this time, Godfrey, our watchman, approached us and said there had been a disturbance in the night. Some thieves had entered the compound over a low point in the wall, had distracted him at the back wall, and had made off with his bicycle, our volleyball net, and all our shoes!

Now, I would like to say that I’m not materialistic. I would like to say that things are just things, and in the back of my head, I know they are. But I like nice things. I can make do if I have to, but I like nice things if they’re available. And seriously, messing with a girl’s shoes? That’s just WRONG!

If you, like my mother, grandmother, and sister, are worried about my safety (or sanity), let me fill you in on the rest of the story…

We spent most of Sunday making police reports, meeting with the captain of the army outpost in the area, and talking to leadership from our organization about what had happened. On Tuesday, we left Arua for our 40/40 training in Zambia for a month. When we returned at the end of May, razor wire was being added to the top of our wall for additional security, we had inherited 2 German Shepherds, Annie and Hoosier, from another missionary family who was leaving Uganda, and Godfrey’s bicycle had been replaced by a Good Samaritan from the States. And we had a couple of care packages of flip flops waiting for us when we returned as well! Thanks, Mom!