Thankfully, the interrogations, gunfire, and other intense situations were part of our security training course. In three days, we learned many valuable lessons about how to minimize the risk of victimization and respond to threats of various types while staying true to our core beliefs and values as Christians. The course began with a session on the theology of risk, where we discussed questions like "Should love for others restrain our risk taking?" and "Is exposure to risk good stewardship?" It was very interesting to look at several biblical examples to define a theology of risk, or a biblical outlook on which risks are worth taking at what times. Ultimately, Esther saved the Jewish people by putting herself at a great risk, saying, "If I perish, I perish." At the same time, however, we saw that it is not biblical to take unnecessary or frivolous risks. Paul's story shows how he used means to preserve his life by using his privilege as a Roman citizen, the legal system, and even local intelligence to escape death. We concluded that how much risk is necessary is situation dependent, but that serving God and being obedient to His commands is a risk worth taking.
Over the course of the next few days, we learned how to respond to various situations that we could be faced with on the field in what is called stress inoculation training. The focus was on how to keep our "thinking brain" on in extremely stressful situations instead of freezing up. In these kinds of situations, a key thing that we learned was that doing nothing must be a conscious decision rather than a response. In general, the statement that we kept hearing from our instructors was "In these situations, there are no right or wrong choices - just actions with consequences." If you realize that your wallet has been stolen, do you chase after the person yelling "Thief!", even if this would mean the individual who has been labeled a thief would be stoned to death by onlookers? If you are being interrogated by criminals who are threatening to harm your family, do you answer them to the detriment of someone else? When should you comply, and at what point do you resist?
Though it was stressful and intense at times (someone who lived in a nearby neighbourhood even called the cops, and several police cars arrived within minutes! Once they knew what we were doing, they thought it was pretty interesting. Some of them even hung around to watch the next few scenarios -- though when we walked past their cars later, we noticed that they did come prepared with large guns), and some situations were ones that we would rather not think about, the difference that a few days of training made was phenomenal. Of course, we are unlikely to experience the extreme scenarios that we learned about and practiced, but it is the reality that there are more security risks in countries like Papua New Guinea.
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| Our security training instructors, which included ex-military, law enforcement, and missionaries; they had so many experiences to share and were great to learn from |
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| Nellicia being interrogated while the rest of the class watched |
In the second half of our trip, we spent some time sharing with people from our church communities in the Norwich area. Our first open presentation, a dessert evening, was a success! We also had the opportunity to share with three school groups of varying sizes, ranging from hundreds of students to a whole school of only 28 students. We enjoyed each presentation, and really appreciated all of the people who introduced themselves and chatted for a few minutes.
Before heading home, we topped our trip off with a day in Niagara. The weather was beautiful, in contrast to the rain, wind, snow, and hail we had during the rest of the trip. Nova especially enjoyed our stop at Bird Kingdom, which is apparently the world's largest free-flying aviary. We also enjoyed the beautiful scenery, and spent some time on the road looking at all of the vineyards and colonial style houses.
After a very busy two weeks, we were eager to get back into a slightly more relaxed and structured routine at home before things get busy in a few weeks again. We were given an opportunity to relax much longer than anticipated when our flight was delayed, which had us waiting in the airport for almost 12 hours before heading to a hotel. After getting about 3 hours of sleep, we were off to the airport again for our flight back home the next morning. And just like that, another two weeks have passed -- bye, Ontario!
