On Your Guard

A house in my sister’s neighborhood was robbed over the Dieciocho holiday. She lives in a gated community, which are very popular here in Chile. Apparently the guards weren’t doing their job of writing down license plate numbers, however, because it must have taken a car to drive off with the load that was stolen!

Also, last week three of our MK’s (siblings) were on a bus when two guys armed with a gun jumped on to rob the passengers. Thankfully they were not violent, and jumped off quickly with what they managed to take from the passengers sitting up front. The MK’s were in the back and didn’t get anything stolen.

Then this morning, a lady at church was sharing how her house was robbed on Wednesday while she was home with her 8-year old granddaughter. A couple of guys jumped their fence and came right in when the granddaughter opened the door. They took petty cash and jewelry, then ran off.

The other night, I returned home from babysitting my niece and nephews and noticed a strange car parked in between our house and the neighbor’s. At first I thought it was someone visiting the neighbors, until I noticed that their house was dark. The car wasn’t running, though there was someone in it. Our car was parked right in front of it, but as soon as I got home we moved it inside our gates. I didn’t like the feeling of that car just sitting there!

I wondered if they were waiting to see if our car would be left out all night (I got home around midnight.) Or, if there were “scoping out” the neighborhood. Either way, I decided to be proactive and went inside for pen and paper. I wrote down a description of the car and its license plate number. A minute or two later, the car drove off! Not very reassuring, huh? But such is life in the big city, I guess. Learning how to always be “on your guard!”