A totally crap day!

We got mugged at gun point yesterday.  

We had just finished having lunch at a restaurant literally opposite Carlos and Caesar´s house. In the restaurant was a police man which turned out to be incredibly useful. Across the road is the Church we attend Assemblies de Dios and the area surrounding that side of the road is a Barrio where a few of the poor kids who attend the school live. We finished our meal and started to walk in to the town center ( a way we have walked everyday many many times) we had literally just crossed the road from the restaurant and were about to go round the corner when we got mugged. It all happened very quickly. Firstly I thought someone was pushing past us in a rush but when I turned my head to look there was suddenly a tall black man with a gun pointed at Robin´s head. I let out a involuntary scream of terror! Which I think scared them a bit as they backed off into the road. The gun was still pointed at Robin who was patting down his shorts and showing the robber that he didn´t have a mobile phone on him (which is what the robber was asking for). I turned round and had a small younger chap facing me who just yanked my bag of my shoulder and then they both ran off round the corner. Thankfully a friend of Caesar´s family Kevin who we both know was standing not to far away and saw the whole thing and very kindly took us both back to the restaurant and told the police man everything that had happened and got Caesar and Carlos. Kevin also recognised one of the robbers which is a useful lead. Caesar is good friends with the chief of police for Santo Domingo so they had quite a few police on the case and even a helicopter pretty quickly. But both the black guy and the young chap escaped on a motorbike. We were woken this morning by some police men who had caught the younger chap. It was really quite sad to be honest, he was only 16, his clothes were torn and he looked poor he was sat on the police motorbike in handcuffs. The police had just caught him in the Barrio with a massive knife on his person which just goes to show you never know what these people carry. Now the police have caught him and know who the other black guy is there may be some hope in recovering the usb although not much.

Caesar´s family have been very kind to us and last night took us for something to eat and even got us to drive their new car (I think they wanted to take our minds off of the mugging) and this morning they cooked us a breakfast and invited us over. They are also taking us to the supermarket later on which is where we were heading before the mugging.  We are both fine and neither of us are hurt which is the main thing, we have been told we are very fortunate that they did not hurt us as they could of.

The photos from the week 10 blog will be somewhat reduced as my usb got stolen which had all of the photos on of our time in Ecuador we now only have the ones left on the camera. So there are none of the school or the compassion project or sadly my chickens feet soup!

There is no need to worry, Carlos´s family are being very supportive and we are recovering well from the shock. I have to admit I feel much more wary about just walking down the road but Robin and I are enjoying our time out here and this one blip is not going to stop us from carrying on enjoying our time out here. We love the school, the compassion project, the kids. We are determined to carry on and everyone has supported us really well.

A bit of a low time at the moment but im sure spendng some time with the children at the school will cheer us both up.

If you could please pray for our safety and protection whilst we are out here that would be much appreciated!

Lots of love from both Robin and I
xxx