TROUBLING

    Tuesday we picked up the mission president and his wife at the airport.  He hit the ground running with interviews as soon as we got to town. The next day the plan was to go to Uvira to visit the Saints there.  Wednesday morning Gary called me to come into the kitchen.  What he showed me was kind of creepy.  Someone had attempted to break into the house.  Our sunroom is really kind of a screened in room where we have a table and some chairs.  The doors to this room are pretty much just screens with a slide up lock at the top.  Someone had pulled the screen down so they could unlock the slide lock.  Then, into the sunroom, they attempted to get into the kitchen,  There is a metal door that we keep locked that leads into the kitchen and a window above the sink.  Someone pulled the screen WAY back on this window and pretty much removed one of the window glass pieces.

      We felt like it had to have been one of our guards, as there is no way someone else could get into the yard, do this and get back out with no one seeing them.  We were supposed to leave for Uvira, and our guard Dieudonne was not scheduled to be there until after we left. So I called Jean Paul who came down immediately.  We left him here to meet Dieudonne and to take his key.  When we got back, we took Fabrice's key as well.

     On Thursday, both guards met Jean Paul at Branch 1 to talk about what had happened. They were on the grass at Branch 1 from 11:00 til 3:30pm.  Neither one would admit to having done the attempted break in.  So, with heavy hearts, we told them that neither one had a job with us any longer.  Fabrice came to get his things this evening carrying a little suitcase.  We told him he could stay the night as was his habit because it is not good to be on the streets after dark.  Friday morning he came to our door with his suitcase in hand and asked if we would pray with him before he left.  After speaking with Fabrice, we told him he could stay.  But then the next day, we spoke with both guards and the Branch president and decided that it is really better if Fabrice only stay til the first of the month.  This has been so hard.  We know how vital it it for both of these young men to have work, how almost desperate they are to have a job.  That's why we can't understand why one or both of them would have attempted to get in the house.  But having lost confidence in them, we cannot continue to employ them as guards.