Weekend Update on Burglary

It's been a roller coaster of a week and Chris and I are still trying to make sense of what's happening and find a way to move forward from here.

I want to say again thank you to all the people who have prayed for us, sent emails, texts, etc. We have such a great support system and we really appreciate all the love and concern that people have expressed to us. It truly does make a difference.

At this point, there's not too much more to tell. We went into the police station Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday of this week. I'm grateful that we've not had to go in for the past 2 days. It's not really the most pleasant place in the world, to say the least, and I find it hard to heal when I have to keep going back there. We've made statements. An investigator has come out to the house. They are trying to get the phone records to see if the thieves made any calls prior to us turning off our phones. Josephat (our guard) was held in lockup from Monday until Thursday. They didn't really get much information out of him so they released him. He has maintained his innocence this whole time and admitted to sleeping during the burglary. He also stopped by the house yesterday and we were able to have a conversation with him and get some closure. In the meantime, we've hired a security guard company to patrol the house at night and are sleeping better because of that.

Smokey has had a rough week too. We now think that she was poisoned the night of the robbery and it just took a few days to go into effect. We've had the vet out here several times to give her anti-toxins, antibiotics and other drugs to help her get past this. She is a strong dog, for sure, and I'm certain she'll pull through. She has slowly, slowly been moving around a bit more each day and last night she ate the first bit of "food" since Monday. I gave her raw egg with oil and she lapped it right up. I fed her that again this morning and she ate that too. So I will slowly start reintroducing some solids and I feel hopeful that she'll take them. At times this week we thought she might've been brain dead because all she did was sit and stare into the distance. It was so sad to see. But this morning she was the most like her old self than she has been all week. She was happy to see us, scratched at the front gate to let her in, and had her tongue hanging out happily.

As far as how Chris and I are doing...well, time will tell. We both have been handling it pretty well, I think. But we've also had our breaking points at various times throughout the week. It definitely helps to have a guard again and to see Smokey feeling better. It has helped to Skype with family and friends and receive their support. And the MKLM community has been really supportive, as well. We're still a bit jumpy, especially at night. But I think that's going to take a long time (if ever) to go away. We're very sad that our relationship with Josephat has ended. We may never know whether or not he had anything to do with the burglary. But regardless, we feel like we lost a friend. If he was complicit, we never had the relationship that we thought we had and it makes us question our sense of trust. And if he's not, then he's a victim just as much, if not more, than us. He was put in prison for 4 days with little food; he was hit by another prisoner while in prison; he lost his job; he lost his dog (he loved Smokey); and he lost our friendship and trust. People may think it's crazy, but I do feel sorry for him regardless and wish it all could've turned out differently.

We will go back to the police station on Monday and see if there are any new developments with the case. In the meantime, we're trying to go about our days as normally as possible. I can't say whether we'll move from this house and into another neighborhood or not. Some days we feel comfortable here and want to stay, and other days we want to move just to feel like we're not being watched as much. But there's really not much we can do at this point, so we'll see how we feel as time goes on. We are definitely not leaving Tanzania and we will continue our mission from here. Don't get me wrong, there were definitely times this week where we were ready to pack up our bags and get out of Dodge. These things are difficult to handle at any point in life. But to have something this traumatic happen in the first year oversees is especially difficult, not just for us but also for those at home. However, this will not be the end of our time here. This is not what mission is about. If we left now we would only have accomplished a victory for the burglars. We would only think of Tanzania as a bad place, a place where the people are "out to get us." And that couldn't be further from the truth. We have had so many Tanzanian coworkers stopping by all week. It's proof that people are both good and bad, just like anywhere else. We will stay here and create more wonderful memories, make more friends and be changed in more positive ways. This is just a blip on our path.