Thief!

On Thursday, just a few days before we leave Indonesia we had our bag stolen while riding in a becak. Like this one but Cheryl was not smiling.... Really annoying, Cheryl & I were heading into town on one of these old rickety things when a motorbike with 2 people sped up and overtook us on the inside. As it did the guy on the back of the bike reached in and snatched our nice little blue bag.

Before we could think or do very much they were off at full pelt. Our becak driver gave chase. It was like something out of the movies! Haring it along the roads of Medan our becak pursuing this other bike. Sadly he was too quick for us and Cheryl & figured it was not worth crashing our becak and the loss of the odd limb or 2 in the pursuit.

I was livid. We lost a bit of money, camera, mobile phone and some plastic. Nothing irreplaceable but it left us with an unease about Medan and a bit dissillusioned, even cynical. The rest of that day we were watching everyone, wondering if they might be a thief or even THE thief. In seconds it had changed our whole view of local people and Medan where we live.

Funny thing is, that morning I was reading my bible and very much felt God was speaking to me about persecution coming to those who believe. Also about putting in the effort to really seek him and sort our lives out. Had real peace about my relationship with Him - same day we get something that tries to shatter that peace! Maybe I'm reading too much into it but it felt like somebody out there did not want us to be at peace, wanted us to doubt God's closeness, his faithfulness.

But we do still trust God and this doesn't change anything. I figure, if we are that important to warrant this kind of activity then I'm interested to see what God will do next!

Sometimes too you have to get things in perspective. We spoke to the becak driver afterwards as he told us how he had lost his mother, brother and sister when the Tsunami hit at the end of 2004. All we lost was a bag and a few things, he lost his whole family. Sobering.