"Stories of Enemy Love" by Pablo Yoder

The one may be overpowered by another, two can withstand him, and a threefold cord is not quickly broken. Well, good afternoon, everyone. Welcome here again to Strength to Strength. It's a blessing to be with you, and I see some familiar faces.

We had quite a large crowd on this morning at 6 o'clock our time, and it was actually at 4 o'clock Pablo's time. Pablo, have you ever presented at 4 o'clock in the morning? Not on Zoom.

You did really, really well, so. But I guess if you're an early bird, 4 o'clock in the morning is no problem. No problem. So yeah, it's a real blessing to have you here with us, Pablo. You shared a touching message this morning on the power and purpose of enemy love.

And for those of you who were not on this morning, the recording is actually up already on Strength to Strength. And so be sure to check that out and listen to that message. I found it very touching, and I saw a number of us wiping tears from our eyes. So definitely a message that you want to listen to. This afternoon, our topic is stories of enemy love, and Brother Pablo has some stories and some things he wants to share with us. Many of us know Pablo from his books.

I asked him if he's still writing books, and he says he is. He tries to write one every year. And so that's a real blessing. His books have blessed many of us. Pablo comes to us from Waslala, Nicaragua. He has six children, I think two still at home. So it's good to be together in this way from around the world, really. So yeah, special welcome to each one of you.

May God bless you and your homes richly. So before we get started here, let's just go ahead and bow our heads for prayer. Let's pray. Our kind Heavenly Father, we come to you in Jesus' name. And Father, our prayer is that your name will be hallowed, and that your kingdom would come, and that your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

And Father, this afternoon, we're gathered here from many different parts of the globe. But Father, that is no problem for you. You're our Father, our Father that never sleeps, a Father of this incredible earth, of us as humans. And also, you're the one who created this universe. And Father, we're amazed that you would care about us. And we see your care and your love in high res in full definition color in your Son, Jesus.

And we're amazed by that and touched by that. And Father, it's because of Jesus. It's because of his teachings and what he's shown us and what he's called us to. It's because of that that we're looking at the subject this afternoon of loving our enemies.

We thank you, Lord, that you've walked before us and have shown us what that looks like. And so Father, I pray that through these stories and this teaching this afternoon, that your kingdom would be advanced a bit more through this time. So bless, Brother Pablo. And Father, I pray especially that you would bless us with a good internet connection. In Nicaragua, it's not always the best time of the day. So Father, we pray, Lord, that you would give us divine connection. And we ask this in Jesus' name. Amen.

Amen. All right. Well, God bless you, Brother Pablo. It's all yours.

Good afternoon, everybody. Some of you weren't with us this morning, probably, so I'll need to explain a little bit. Like Brian said, we're looking at one of those doctrines, teachings of Jesus that a lot of people have such a hard time with, and maybe all of us have struggled with. And even in our plain people, among our plain people, sometimes we have not understood it maybe rightly and have not always obeyed it. But it's a very, very important doctrine.

And this morning, as we kind of looked at this difficulty of accepting that we would actually love our neighbors and actually turn the other cheek when they huacas, go the second mile, and all these things that Jesus teaches so clearly in the Sermon on the Mount and other places like Romans 12, to me, it's really a blessing to see Jesus' example.

If Jesus would be asking all these things of us but would not have lifted a finger to practice them, the story would be so different. But Jesus not only taught these things with his words, but he lived them with his life, and what an example.

The Bible says in Matthew that Jesus was walking by the Sea of Galilee. He saw two brothers, Simon called Peter and Andrew, his brother, casting a net into the sea. They were fishermen. Then he said to them, "Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men." And they immediately left their nets and followed him. Here we have these men that were fishing, and here comes this man that they probably knew about and had heard about and maybe even seen some miracles. And he asked them to follow him.

And they abandoned everything and did that. And I've often wondered how these men felt years later on their journey following Jesus and going through everything they went through. And especially there at the end when things were kind of in their minds were falling apart, they were hoping that Jesus would establish a kingdom in Jerusalem and have a natural kingdom here on earth. And oh my, those men went through some terribly hard times, and then they were so disappointed. I wonder sometimes if they just thought about it, "Oh, this man isn't what he's." Can you imagine Peter, the day when he wanted to protect Jesus? I mean, he really loved Jesus, and he wanted to protect him.

And he jerked out that sword that Jesus had said they should take along, and he was going to use it and

rebuked him and healed the ear. And again, a tremendous lesson of exactly what we're talking about is non-resistance and loving instead of using violence, a change, a dramatic change from the Old Testament to the New. And you begin to wonder, did Jesus ever—I mean, did these men ever—were they sorry that they followed Jesus? I'm sure there are periods of time in their lives when they questioned if their wisdom had followed him. But then if we follow the story through all the way to the end, Jesus' resurrection, and then him meeting his disciples and the ascension, and then when the Holy Spirit came, I mean, you know good and well, those men were not sorry that they followed Jesus.

And they were just as excited as Jesus was to share the good news. My wife and I, thinking of this journey of coming to Waslala, Tim Sharock, and his wife, and different other missionaries that have went through this journey, we sometimes ask ourselves the question, "Was that really smart?" When we got married, my wife and I, we were just young, all so naive, so ignorant.

We both felt that if we wanted to get married, it was to serve God better. And of course, there were other purposes to get married too, but that was one of the things that burned in our hearts. If we get married, we want to be able to serve God better than we did when we were single. So we did something really strange when we walked out. No.

At the end of the reception, I got my brother to give a talk on service. And it doesn't really fit in with a wedding, but that was our goal. We said, "We want to serve God." And we got him to talk about service. And then we had a couple sing that song, "So Send I You."

And if we would have known, if we would have known, those words are really serious if you look at them. And we were saying, "Jesus, we're ready to suffer. We're willing to go anywhere." And we meant it, but we were so naive. We did not know what's behind that. But I just can't help but believe that God looked down and saw those young people and their desire, and he just took us seriously. "So Send I You." He just took us seriously. And we offered, and he had that.

And when we came to Waslala, we did not realize that it was one of the most dangerous places in Nicaragua.

Out soon. Soon we found out. But God just says, "That's a dark corner of my world, and there's a lot of lost children out there, and I need a light. I need a candle. I need a burning light." And of course, he was there with us and helped us. He knew we'd handle it. And we look back now like those disciples when they dropped everything and followed Jesus. I mean, we're not even in heaven yet, but I'm not sorry that we made that commitment and followed him even in the face of suffering like things we went through. And it's not just Waslala. You know that. If you are serious in your walk with God, you're following Jesus.

That's the question this afternoon. Are you willing to follow Jesus? And all that entails, are you willing to go wherever he sends you? Are you willing to go into situations that are very uncomfortable for the flesh?

My encouragement would be you can't lose by following Jesus. Just go for it. Step by faith, go out and follow his footsteps, follow his call, and he will help you through anything. And it's not just in Waslala where we go through tough times. All of us. All of us go through things like suffering, and we have to face this thing of people that are against us, enemies, people that can't hack us, and we rub the wrong way. And that's what we're talking about this morning.

Our calling is to turn around and love those people and attack them not with anger and hate and arms, but with love and good works and blessings.

Brian, you mentioned the other day something about being wise as serpents and as tame as pigeons. I don't know what it says in English.

That's a beautiful thing when we walk with Jesus and trust him and just every day, the amazing things that he helps us with. I mentioned this morning through those robberies.

We always thought maybe it'll be this way this time or the next time will be different. It'll be that way. But it always was a surprise. And the things we prepared or planned to say, it ended up it was different. But the fact that every time in those robberies, we felt God's presence, his direction, the right words to speak, it was tremendous experiences.

And then, of course, during those times, we kind of got robber smart. And a lot of things with experiences every time we learned. And of course, one of the things we learned was always be kind. And another thing was that we really encouraged the family to not panic, not scream. And it's amazing how God would bless them with enough calm to face very difficult situations without screaming. I don't think ever through all of that, any of my family ended up losing it or screaming or panicking.

And then, of course, we had radio communication with Costa Rica. We had expensive radios. I forget what. They weren't HAM, but they were really strong radios where we could communicate with Costa Rica. And we knew that if the robbers would steal these radios, we would be disconnected and wouldn't be able to talk to our families. So just a little bit how to be smart as a serpent. We had this old—this thing is 20 years old now, so it's all batter, but I kept it. What we did is hollow out a book, cut out the insides.

Back then, it wasn't as shredded. And then we would just slip it over the radio like this, slip it on. And from the back, it looked like just all the rest of the books. And they never found it. They took our CBs. We had CB radios just for local contact. We had old CBs on purpose that didn't work very good. We had cameras that were old and not worth much. And so we'd always give them this older stuff, and the Lord would protect, especially protect our radios.

Anyway, those are some of the things that—but then again, we go back to Jesus' example and how he—in these things, and he was so wise. He pulled off so many tricks or whatever you'd call them with the people that hated him, but always gentle, always kind. So as we follow Jesus, this morning, we went over the scriptures in Matthew and there in Romans 12.

It says this thing that people argue against, that that can't be, that if they slap you on one cheek, you would turn the other. But what did Jesus do? They slapped him on the face. The Bible doesn't say that he literally turned the other cheek. What does it say? He opened not his mouth.

So that's probably harder than turning the cheek is keeping your mouth shut when somebody slaps you on the face. It talks about going the second mile. Did Jesus go the second mile for us, brethren? A lot further than the second mile, the fourth and the fifth and the tenth and the hundredth mile that he went for our sake, for our salvation.

Pray for those who spitefully use you. It's such a blessing to pray for robbers. I'll tell you that. To pray for them in their presence and different times of opportunity of praying for them and witnessing to them. Did Jesus pray for his enemies? Absolutely.

I don't know. In Spanish, in Luke, where it says that Jesus said, "Father, forgive them for they know not what they do." In Luke, in Spanish, it says he would say that repeatedly. Now, I looked in English, and I couldn't find a translation that would have brought that out. So possibly Spanish has something there a little extra that maybe it's not supposed to be. But anyway, that picture of Jesus praying for his enemies all night long and slapping them on the face, "Father, for they know not what to do." And then they lay him down on the cross, or maybe he laid himself down on the cross and drove in the nails. And he's saying, "Father, forgive them for they know not what they do."

He's praying for them. He's praying for those people sincerely and honestly. And I've often asked myself the question, would it be possible that God would have forgiven them that specific sin because they don't know what they're doing? I believe this was sincerely and honestly praying that prayer because he loved them.

He sincerely loved them and wanted them for them.

The Bible says that at one point, both of the two thieves that were crucified with him were slandering him. Okay? Later, of course, we know that one of them switched. And I can't help but believe that as he saw that love, that the response to his enemies, just like in Waslala, it convinced our neighbors that they want to follow Christ because they saw that power that is so unnatural. So this man is watching Jesus, and he changes his tune. And then, of course, he ends up saying, "Lord, remember me when you get to your kingdom." And Jesus said, "Today, you will be with me in paradise." Such a beautiful example of Jesus loving his enemies and the result in salvation of these men.

So the question is, as I close down this little meditation before we go into stories and stuff like that, Jesus is not asking anything of us that he did not do himself. He gave us a wonderful example. So if there's anybody out there that questions if Jesus was serious about loving your enemies, just study the life of Christ and follow his examples and understand the change from the Old Testament to the New. Follow his footsteps, and it won't always be easy, but he is right there to help us and will take us to glory where we don't have to worry about robbers anymore. Back at the time when our family was going through the most difficult times, my wife sometimes would weep and she'd say, "I can't wait to get to heaven because there are no robbers there."

So, okay, we're going to go into another part of our little class this afternoon.

So here we go.

Yeah.

We'll go on. Uh-oh.

Can you see him?

Yes, we sure can. He looks downright scary.

This is my friend. What are you holding? What are you holding? Hold it up a little bit higher.

Oh, no. A homemade pistol. Okay. Now, this looks real crazy. This is my friend Samir. Hi.

His mother is part of our church. He works here for me. I got him to help me. This stuff he is wearing and this pistol is actually stuff that the robbers used on us. We had a robber that we ended up calling our robber because he came five times. And he'd come more or less every two weeks. Once he sold all the stuff that he stole from us and ran out of cash, he'd come back. So one time he came with this mask.

I can see. Here you go. Is that a bandana? This mask is a bandana. He just simply made some holes in it and wrapped it around his face and used this little pistol. This was, I think, our third robbery. We didn't know he was the same guy. Yeah. First, we didn't realize it's the same man. And he had this old sack on his chipped on him. Now it's old. It's falling apart. But the next day after he left, I went like I usually would. I'd go out exploring and see where all this guy was and where he was up on a hill watching our house before it got dark, getting ready for this robbery. And afterwards, after he left with his bags of stuff that he stole, he took this pistol, what a pistol, wrapped it in this thing and hid it at the base of a tree.

And I found it. And I went home and I said, "Honey, he's coming back. I'm sorry, but he's coming back." Well, we didn't put it back at the base of the tree. So the next time he came, where is the sleeve?

The next time he came, he didn't have his armor.

He didn't have his mask. So he had a long sleeve shirt on. He had on a long sleeve shirt, as you can see. This is the cuff, and here's his sleeve. He cut that thing off at the both of them off at the base, and he stripped this thing over his face.

But now he had his mask back again with one of the sleeves from his shirt. And by then, we're recognizing it's the same fella. And the time that he held us up with this pistol, he was outside. He told me to go get Tim Shrock and bring him over because he wants his money as well. When Tim Shrock came up the hill, by then, we were pretty sure it's the same guy. And he saw that the pistol was made out of wood. So Tim walked over toward him confidently, and he said, "Go inside. Go inside and get down on your face." Bokawaho, what he said means get on your face. Well, Tim recognized that it's just a whatever and went up and shook his hand, made him put his pistol down and shake hands with him.

So the next time he came, one of the first times he came, he took this big black plastic, cut a hole in the middle. There you go.

And with the piece that he cut out here in the hole, he made this.

Now, what do you think that would look like in the middle of the night? You come charging in saying, "Bokawaho." Well, he was very careful. Every robbery, he dropped things outside. And the next day, that was my hobby. I'd go look up the stuff that he left laid. And he had different times like that he left his stuff laid.

This fella came five times. If you've read the book, The Price, he would laugh about it. He would joke with his friends how he can go to the gringo's place, and he puts them down and flat down and gets their stuff. And he'd laugh about it. But then it was very sad because the Lord dealt with him, and he was killed.

Not anything that we did or we'd pray for his salvation. We'd witness to him.

But they cruelly butchered him. They cut him up with a machete. They said when they went to get his body, they brought it home in pieces.

Now, we have some other things here. Tagalakao.

One of the interesting times that we were robbed, they robbed us with a gun like this. This is a banana gun.

This thing this here, the oh my, what do you call this thing?

Is the only thing that's original. Like a machine gun. Yeah, it's a machine gun. This here thing is the only thing that's original. But this morning, my little friend Samir helped me to go find the stuff so it would look now, can you imagine in the middle of the night, a guy holds you up and this is just a silhouette?

It doesn't work. But this is the original thing that we saved. But a silhouette of this in the middle of the night, it's enough. It's all it takes to scare you bad enough. And anyway, what happened was that night, there were these guys that came with this gun to hold us up. But they ended up they didn't use it, of course.

First of all, it doesn't work. Second, they didn't need it because we cooperated. Everything they said we did. And that was one of those times, I think, that we served coffee. I'm not sure. There were so many times. But what happened then is they asked me if we had a gun. Well, somebody had given my son a pellet gun in those days. And I wasn't sure about this, but hey, it's not a real gun.

But it looked like a.22. So when he asked me if we had a gun, I said, "No, we don't." But I said, "My son has a pellet gun that resembles a gun." Because I didn't want him to find it later and then be angry at me because I would have lied. So I told him honestly, well, then he wanted to see it.

So we had it hidden under a desk, and I went and pulled it out, and he looked at it, and he said, "Well, how does that thing work?" So I took the pellet gun, and I pumped some air in it, and it had pellets.

It worked. So there was a under the steps, there was a bag of flour, my wife's flour. So I just pop shot into the flour, showed him that it does shoot, but it's just a pellet. I said, "It's just an air gun. It doesn't hurt you."

So I laid it down at the table there, and we went on, and he took us through the house. Just opened that box, opened this door, "Give me this, give me that." We didn't have any money because when they'd insist we have to have money because we're Americans and we have land and we have farms. And then I'd explain. I said, "Look, we can't have money here. We're always getting robbed. And we don't even give offering money in the church. All we do is put in a slip of paper. And once a week, we settle out in Waslala where we keep our money.

If we need money to pay our hired guys, we bring it out and we dish it out and we don't have any money." And I remember one time I asked a fella, "Would you have money in your house after 16 robberies?" And then he didn't answer, but I could see that he understood. But you can have the stuff. You can take anything you want. And we often had a little bit of cash. We'd give them that first, of course.

So that night, later in the robbery, he wanted to go upstairs where the bedroom, praying. And so I said, "Please, could we just pass that on? My family is so scared. They have been traumatized so many times. Could we please just" and I said, "No, open up." So I'd go over and knocked on the door, and I'd always told my family never to open the door unless I knocked and I say, "Open." So I asked him to open. And then he stood in the doorway and with his flashlight and shone around. I think the generator was off that night and shone around. I remember he shone right in my wife's face. I didn't like that very good.

But anyway, he gave me this, checked that box, opened that suitcase. And then my children, I had gotten a laptop and had it under a cushion in one of the love seats we had in our bedroom. And they looked so guilty sitting there on that love seat. And he said, "Tell those children to get up. Get up, Jacinto and Janie." And then he said, "Lift up the cushions." And I had told him to hide the laptop somewhere else, but they lifted up the cushions and there was the laptop. So, of course, he wanted that. But then the family told me later, he said, "Those guys were armed." I said, "Really? No. I didn't ever saw a gun."

Yeah. The next morning, we found the banana gun outside by the house propped against the wall. So then I knew that nobody goes to a house to steal with a banana gun if they have a real gun. So they didn't have a real gun. Well, the next day, the BB gun, I mean, the pellet gun was gone.

So he obviously used it when he was up there in the bedroom, and he would just let he'd hide it behind himself, beside himself, and would only let the tip stick out, and you could see it was a gun. So the family thought he was armed.

So really, he used the pellet gun on ourselves.

That night, we had the opportunity of witnessing to these men to the place where when they left, they were our friends. And like often happened when they left, that we would shake hands and we would thank them for not having been mean. And then they'd thank us for opening up and cooperating.

So those are some of the experiences we had. One night, we had a robbery. This story comes out in The Price. There were guys there with machine guns this time, really serious robbers. They didn't have banana guns and pistols made out of wood.

After they were done and they went down, left their house down to the hill, there's a little generator house down there. And we thought that the robbery was over. We got up off the floor. We were praising the Lord. We were talking and saying, "This is wonderful. Again, God protected us. Everybody's safe." And one of those moments when you're just so glad to be alive.

And all of a sudden, boom, there was a shot just right down the hill. And of course, we hit the floor again and didn't know what's happening. Well, later, the next morning, we went down to the generator house and found the shell of the bullet that was shot, machine gun shell.

And we found the place where the bullet had penetrated the dug it up. So we had the whole thing, just one of those things. But it's interesting. We found out later that the robbers were fighting over the loot.

They had gotten some cash that time. It was that we had some cash on hand. And they got in a fight. That story comes out in The Price because this man later was converted.

When we were at Tim's going through their house, they had Tim and his wife and me sitting outside the house on a bench, on a porch, and they were just ransacking the house and looking for things. Well, this guy that was later converted came down and asked if he could have this Bible. He found Rosa's Bible, and it was a nice little Bible with a zipper, and he wanted the Bible. Well, that was really funny for us to have a robber wanting a Bible. But Rosa said, "Well, yes, but could I at least get my photos out?" So he gave her permission, and she emptied the Bible of all her precious notes and things and photos and gave it back to him.

He said, "Are you sure? I will not take this Bible voluntarily."

Well, this fella then later gave his testimony, came to my house, and asked for forgiveness. We wept, forgave him. I already had. And we took that Bible home, and then he was caught by the police, and they stuck him in prison. And he asked his mom to send that Bible in because he had a lot of spare time, and he wanted to read the Bible.

We're not sure this guy's story was really, really interesting. How because of that Bible, he began reading it. He'd read it out loud, and then others wanted to read it, and it started getting passed around from cell to cell. And he claims that there was a tremendous revival in that prison because of that Bible.

So exactly, he never did join our church. He lives back over the hills here and is part of an evangelical church. But he gave testimony of how he was touched by his visit at our place, how the Lord used that. One time, I think it was the second time that he got the Bible, but he was there twice.

So robbers was touched, and that Bible was a blessing to him. And then he's the one that told us the story about how they got in this fight down there. And he took his machine gun and shot at the other fella's feet. I think that night there were three or four of them.

And that's where that bullet came from. So praise the Lord that there's some of these robbers were converted. But most of them, as far as we know, a lot of them actually, they get killed. And it's sad. It's sad. We never wished them to get killed. We'd pray for their salvation.

So let me see what else.

This is probably the thing that's most touching for me is these strings and these ropes. This was the time that the robbers came at 7:30 to Eldon Knowlson's house, came to our place at 8:30, and kept us hostage all night long. They had us hostage in our own home. They took the keys, saved the money early in the evening, and it just got stronger, the pressure stronger, stronger. And these were wicked men. They had a pistol. That's all they had, one pistol.

But this finally came to a head when they were so determined to get money that, well, first, they were threatening to kidnap us. Tim Schrock or me and Louis Yoder was there. A young single fellow was with us. And the time it got down to where, "Okay, if you don't get us money, we're taking you to the jungle." And I said, "Well, I guess that's okay. Would you give me permission to say goodbye to my family? And could I pray before I go?" And they said, "Yes." So I went upstairs and said goodbye to my family. At that point, I wasn't totally sure they're taking me, but we were always prepared because we knew that might happen, a kidnapping.

So that was a really tough minute, you can imagine. After I said goodbye and started walking toward the door, one of my daughters ran and grabbed my pant legs, and she cried, "And Daddy, please don't go." And there again, it wasn't like they panicked or screamed, but that time she clung to me, and I just gently said, "Look, I have to go, but God will take care of me." So I went downstairs, and I went up to them, and they had these strings ready. I knew what they were going to do is tie me up. So I went over. No, first, we prayed, Louis and I. We got on our knees and raised our hands.

And I tell you, those are prayers that are really sincere. I prayed for the robbers. I prayed for my family. I prayed for our safety, that His will would be done, that He would give us grace and whatever. And after I was done, I walked up to the main robber and gave him my hands, and I said, "Here I am. You can tie me up now. I'm ready to go." And of course, they were not prepared for kidnapping. That's a lot; that's a serious business in Nicaragua. So then he got upset, and he looked over to the heavyset guy that was there, and he said, "Tie this gringo up, see if you're going to give us some money or not."

And this is when they tied my hands behind my back, and then they tied my feet together, made me lay down, tied my feet together, and then they pulled the strings together. In other words, cocked my feet up and my arms down, and I'm in a really, really awkward position. And then they did that to Louis Yoder as well. And the next two hours, they had us tied like that, trying to just convince me that I'm going to give them some money.

So it was a long time. They'd say, "Okay, think about it, talk about it. Tell us what you can do. But if you don't have money," they keep on threatening. Well, I remember we were really tired, Louis and I, and we'd sing. We sang from the floor. Louis can really sing a good tenor with the Greenville Quartet. Some of you probably heard him. So we sang, "How Great Thou Art."

And I, at one point, was so tired, I wormed myself over and got myself up on top of him. I said, "Hey, can I use you as a pillow, man? I'm cramped." And he said, "Sure." Well, then they got the family down, and they got the family around the living room, and these guys, then they put their hoods on and made them look horrible. They didn't have them on all the time.

And oh, first, when they had me on the ground, they had these ropes here. The one guy, the big heavyset guy, had this rope that he was threatening to hit me, lash me. But he never praised the Lord. He never touched me. But he left the ropes lay, and that's why we kept them. And then here are the strings they used to tie my wrists and my feet. They were double. We cut them then to get them loose. But this is what also stayed, and it gives us so many memories of that horrible night. Anyway, they got the family together, and then they're telling the family, "Okay, this man is not cooperating. We want $4,000, and we're not going to take no for an answer.

So talk to him." And they claimed to put bombs in different places of the house. They're going to blow the house up. They're going to do this. They're going to do that. They threatened a lot. And by then, they were wearing me down. This is 1 o'clock in the morning, and I am totally tired. And the family is saying, "Daddy, couldn't we take the loophole? We had a loophole. We had decided that as a mission, there's no ransom money because if we would have started giving money as ransom money, our mission would have to close down." And we'd explained that to the robbers. We can't give ransom money. But that night is when they started then going for my children.

I had mentioned that this morning. They threatened to rape one of my daughters. They said, "We're going to take one of the girls out in the dark, and when she comes back, she won't be the same." Then, of course, the family says, "Daddy, shouldn't we just take the loophole? Could you negotiate? Do something."

And I'm laying there on the floor. What do I do? I don't want to give in. And yet, really serious, these men would not take no for an answer. And very, very cold-hearted. That one minute, they're laughing and talking and teasing my little Kenny, which was a baby. And the next minute, they're threatening to blow us. So finally, when the leader told the big black guy, "Go get the girl," when he got up to walk over, then I said, "Just a minute."

I said, "I don't have any money. I've been telling you all evening I don't have any money. But I did sell some calves, but they haven't paid me yet. But I think if I would send my son to town, I could probably borrow some money." So that's the way the whole thing ended. It's a long story.

But as soon as we were negotiating, he told the family, "They can go back upstairs." He released some of my ropes. He kept my hands tied and sat me up. It was a matter of negotiating. And then at 1 o'clock, my son and Louis went to town, were able to borrow some money, 1,000, and brought it back. And then at 4 o'clock, they finally left and took Louis and my son Jacinto with them at gunpoint, took them out in a vehicle and our vehicle and asked them to take them supposedly just down the road away. But it ended up 30, left at 4 o'clock, and I am 30. They were from far away.

Turn around and come back. So those are probably some of the life and I in our life is to, well, first of all, the whole ordeal. Church hadn't eaten any supper all night long. Now it's 9:30 back. And we decided that probably they kidnapped him now and are going to ask for more money. And oh my, it's a long story. The brethren came at 7 o'clock. The brethren of the church came, the native brethren and Tim Schrock's. And we had a lot of support, a lot of comfort. But where is our son? Where is Louis?

At 9:30, they drove in safe and sound. That was a tremendous blessing. So yeah, those are some of the things that we went through, and we'll be opening up for questions here.

There's a lot more stories, but that's probably enough for today unless you ask for more or something specific that you would like to hear.

Okay. Well, thank you so much, Brother Pablo, for sharing those touching stories and how God worked through your lives in that time. So yeah, we've had some questions come in. Some came in this morning as well. And let's see. Where do we start here? Okay. So the first question that we have here is this: in the case of a robbery or assault, is it right to call the police?

So you could even take this when it's actually happening or afterwards. How did you handle that there in Nicaragua? Maybe you could tell us about that context once. When we first started being robbed, we felt responsible to go to the police to let them know what's happening.

They're law and order. They need to know what's happening. So we did that. We would go in, and we would tell them that if they do catch him, we'll pardon them. We won't press charges. But we're here to give you a report of what happened. And they, of course, asked all kinds of questions. But what was really sad and is still sad is that it didn't help much.

One of the worst robberies that traumatized us most was the first time the guy came, the one that came five times. He came with another man, and they were extremely cruel. The way they treated us, they didn't have guns. We didn't know it. He acted like he had a machine gun, but it was just a machete. We found out later. And just screaming. And we found out that when they have guns, they don't need to scream. They don't have to make.

They just show their gun. People just melt. But these guys were so mean. Well, later, this very man was walking around town. We found out who it was. The neighbors themselves discovered. He was spending dollars. He was buying things, and he was drinking with the police.

They saw him go into the police station. Well, the next time the police came around and said that they wanted to know anything. And then we just, I think it was Tim Schrock, just bluntly said, "Well, we don't know what's going on." He said, "That guy goes right into the police station, and he's in and out of the police station, and he's drinking with some of your men."

Then the police said, "Yeah, well, it's just that's the tactic we use. We bring them in, and we get close to him, and then we ask him, 'Hey, do you got a camera for sale?'" He had stolen one of the cameras. "Do you have a camera for sale?" And we finally set things up. And then once we have proof, and then we catch him. Well, that is absolutely not even true. So we gave up after a certain amount of times. We gave up and wouldn't even report. It didn't help. Maybe even made things worse.

Twice, guys came that we think were actually soldiers from the army right here in the army base in Las Lalas. So here, at that time, it wouldn't help anyway. So we gave up on it. Now, here where we live right now, our houses are more secure. We're just a stone's throw from town.

Depends on the situation. I'd probably call the police. But hopefully, the police would deal with them gently and give us opportunities to talk to them and love them, and we wouldn't press charges. That's kind of where we're at.

Sure. Thank you. Thank you for sharing that. Another question that runs along the theme of some of the consequences these men experienced in their lives. You've talked about numerous different robbers who did not end up well for them.

And this morning, you talked about that one who sold himself to Satan, and he was incredibly hardened. That was quite a story. Someone submitted this question kind of in light of that. Is the cold—I'm sorry. Is the cold comfort of knowing that God will judge harshly the harassment of the apple of His eye a feeling that God can approve in the Christian's life?

Okay. Finding comfort in that is the question. Yeah.

Yeah. Well, there in Thessalonians, it says that it's fair that now we who suffer, we're suffering, and they're having a good time. It's fair that that switches, and someday we're going to have rest, and they're going to be suffering. I think those truths—I don't know if I would have ever just exactly gotten comfort out of it. But yeah, like I said, we would pray for them sincerely for their salvation. But we knew all along that God has His limits, and we saw it happen again and again. He says it. His vengeance is mine.

I always felt if I would try to revenge on a robber, I would be cheating. I would be taking God's job. I'd be trying to do what God's going to do. And He knows how to do that, when and where and what's best.

It's not for me. So comfort in it? Yeah. Those truths are what helped us go through it. It's just temporary. And I don't know. Maybe there's more questions more specifically there. But it's not like I can honestly say it was not like something we're jumping up and down about, just gleefully waiting till they get—actually, it would feel sad when some of these guys were—Sure. And that really came out too as you shared about you made those gift baskets for that really hardened one especially and your tears. You gave them a hug.

I was really touched by that love. And that's supernatural love. Amen. Amen. That spoke to those people, no doubt.

So yeah, that's a good question to think about. Thanks for answering that. Okay. Well, we have a couple more here yet. And if there's any more from the group here, feel free to submit those questions as they're coming up in your mind. Feel free to submit those, and we'll try to get to them.

So the next question here is from a different angle, and it's good. I like it. And the question is this: does this only work in a Christian context? So this is the power of enemy love. And then continuing, could the same thing work between two enemies where neither is a Christian?