Dear Sienna Elyse,
Right now, I don't have any family living near me. My closest sister is 3.5 hours' drive away and the others are 6 hours away, with all my brothers at least a two hour flight away. But I've been thinking that once you and I are together, we'll move to be closer to my sisters, at least, which would be great.
The big thing recently is that while my parents are currently missionaries in South America, they have decided to come back to the States. Recently, they were attacked and robbed by armed gunmen (wait, is "armed" gunmen redundant? I'm not sure...). That was pretty awful. I got a little message from my dad on my phone (I rarely get an IM from him) saying that it was actually my mom and they'd been robbed at gunpoint. At which point I supressed the urge to scream in horror and immediately started calling them.
Turns out, they were sitting on their patio finishing up dinner and just talking, when my mom sees a masked guy running towards them with a gun in his hand, followed by a few others. She immediately starts screaming and runs for her bedroom, where she proceeds to hide under the bed after locking the door to her room.
Where was my father, your grandfather, you ask? Well, since my mother wasn't able to tell him that there were armed men coming at them, he had no idea and sort of watched her running off screaming in shock, before turning around to see these guys coming right at him. They proceeded to beat him up. One goes inside to grab stuff, a few (maybe four or five) stay outside to beat dad. At some point, he's on the ground and they're trying to decide what to do and he hears them say, "Let's just get rid of him." This is when he realizes they are going to kill him, so he decides he's not going to die on the ground like a coward and jumps up and starts attacking two of them. A third jumps into the fight and the rest are yelling at the ones fighting him to shoot him in the head, "...just shoot him, shoot him in the head."
This fight goes on for a little while and then they get scared, probably because dad is a lot stronger than they thought he would be, and take off running. Dad runs into the house to get mom and there is one more guy there who is taking off with a bunch of things. The guy points his gun at dad and tells him to stay there as he runs out of the house. Of course, dad chases after him, because, once you've physically attacked three young men with guns, what's chasing after one more???
Dad didn't get the last guy and they got away with my mom's laptop, their cell phones and a few other things. But didn't take the car, or even TV (not that they had a big one to take, anyway), which is extremely lucky. Mom wouldn't open the door for dad when he came knocking because she thought they had a gun to his head and were forcing him to get her to open the door so they could...well, do horrible things. So after thirty minutes of coaxing, she finally opens the door and comes out. Since my dad has been quite worried about just this sort of thing happening, he's always been paranoid about locking up his laptop and hiding it. Which means the robbers didn't get it and that's how mom was able to get in touch with me.
They called the police, but it took them over an hour to get there because their patrol car had broken down and they were forced to hitch-hike. The car that gave them a ride, dropped them off nearly a mile from mom and dad's house, so they had to run the rest of the way...yeah, that's cop service for you in third world countries.
Anyway, dad thinks they left because mom had gone into the house and they couldn't get to her, so they thought she had called the police and the cops were on their way. But, in a country like that, everyone knows the cops don't show up right away, certainly not within minutes of a call. So, I'm pretty sure they didn't expect dad to fight back and that frightened them more than anything. The good news here, is that mom and dad then decided to come back to the States! Which is awesome.
Unfortunately, it will take time for them to sell their house and get everything over here. Which is difficult for both them and us. Everyday, they have the memory of being attacked and everyday, we know something could happen to them. It's not a good way to live and I wish there was something I could do to help them get here. They've been missionaries for the last 30-something years and coming back here means they have absolutely nothing. They'll have to start everything over from scratch and I just don't even know what putting "Missionary for 35+ years" on their resume will ever get them. It's not going to be easy. If they could sell the house, then at least they'd have something to rely on for a while until they're better situated. But that's turning into quite a painful and difficult, nearly impossible process.
So, all that to say, I'm hoping they find a place near my sisters so that I can move closer to my sisters and parents at the same time. I think it's totally possible...maybe. Ha. But clearly, we're a family that enjoys dealing with nearly insurmountable odds and getting things done anyway. Dad has done it before and I'm sure he'll do it again. If they have to come here with nothing in their pockets, we'll figure out something anyway.
They're so excited about you. They are actually looking at homes near my city in case they can buy something when they get here so they can be here to help with you. I can't wait to have them nearby.
I love you.
Mom
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