Why Do I Risk Removing Landmines? - Jared

Isn't this dangerous? I'm sure people watching this will be like, "What? That's crazy. That's way too risky. You know, why would you do that?" So tell me about that. Is it dangerous? And then also, like, how did you assess that risk as you're thinking about moving your family over here to do this kind of work?

Talk to me about that. Yeah, yeah. So obviously there's an element of danger to it because we're dealing with explosives that, if they go off, they can cause great harm. They can take lives. They can maim. That's what they're designed to do. So we're obviously working with something that is dangerous. Now, we also are very calculated in what we do, and we have techniques in which we do things, and we don't plan on people getting hurt. Like, we have ways in which we do it to try to avoid accidents happening and that sort of thing. But obviously there's a level of danger because of what we're working with. The question as far as the risk and evaluating that, so that's actually, I feel like that's a very good question and something to think about.

And that is something that my wife and I, we have processed through. And I don't know that we fully—we're still working through this, but this is some of what we've had to work through. So no matter what we do in life, we always are evaluating risk in anything that we do. Whether we actually truly think about it or not, but subconsciously, there's an element to where we consider risk. Because the prime example is if you need to go to the grocery store and buy groceries, you hop in your car and you go to the grocery store. There's a risk involved in that. You might have a car accident which could take your life. There's a risk.

But we need food. We need to go to the grocery store. We weigh the risk, and we go to the grocery store. And so that's—we weigh that. And so the same for us, myself, my wife, and our family, we weigh the risk that's involved in this work. And I think a big piece that has really affected our lives is both of our dads have died. And my wife's dad was a farmer. My dad was a preacher.

We wouldn't view those as high-risk lifestyles. But my wife's father passed away from cancer. My dad passed away in a car accident. And so I think we need to be careful how much we run our lives based off of risk. And we need to be faithful to what God is calling us to and recognize that sometimes God calls us to things that in man's eyes is considered risky. But we can rest in the protection that God offers. And if we're being faithful and following God, to me, that's the most important thing. I could be fearful of the risk that's here and say, "I need to pack up my family. We need to go back to America, and we need to live a risk-free life for my family."

Well, my dad was killed in a car accident. My wife's father was killed by cancer. You know, and so to us, the most important thing is to follow God and trust Him for protection in what we do.