SSN Vet
Member
A former shipmate who left the navy and has now been a missionary in Kenya for 8 years shared this perspective with me while on furlough in Nov. It's been haunting me since and seems very relevant to the "to carry or not to carry" discussion. Bare with me, I'll try to be concise...
Out in the bush near the mission station, after dark (when everyone locks up and shuts down), a boy runs into their compound shouting that the 'bandits' are robbing his home (huts joined by fences around a cattle yard). As is often the case, the village men had taken their cattle on a long sojourn to better pasture.
What to do? Leaving his wife and three children behind, my friend grabbed an axe handle and ran to the scene alone. He fell upon a group of "thugs" yelling and swinging. They were VERY surprised and took off running.
A license to posses a fire arm of any kind is hard to get in Kenya and the punishment for unlicensed possession can be severe ... i.e. summary court martial and execution ... (armed gangs and organized Muslim revolutionaries are a big problem).
He acted out of instinct to help the very people he had come to live among, serve and bare witness to. But in retrospect, he determined that the principles of "love thy neighbor" and "do unto others" REQUIRED him to respond.
He explained that he loved his wife and children and wouldn't hesitate to defend them, so how could he not rise up to defend the wife and children of his neighbor? Wasn't this the "brass tacks" of the commandment? Were they of less value?
I've enjoyed THR forum for a month now and have noted that it is often viewed "unwise" to consider defending our neighbors as we would defend ourselves. I know there are a lot of issues involved and if the bad guys don't get you the lawyers probably will. But maybe, just maybe, a generation of men who would put these principals ahead of their own comfort and security could go a long way toward making this world a better place.
Food for thought!
Out in the bush near the mission station, after dark (when everyone locks up and shuts down), a boy runs into their compound shouting that the 'bandits' are robbing his home (huts joined by fences around a cattle yard). As is often the case, the village men had taken their cattle on a long sojourn to better pasture.
What to do? Leaving his wife and three children behind, my friend grabbed an axe handle and ran to the scene alone. He fell upon a group of "thugs" yelling and swinging. They were VERY surprised and took off running.
A license to posses a fire arm of any kind is hard to get in Kenya and the punishment for unlicensed possession can be severe ... i.e. summary court martial and execution ... (armed gangs and organized Muslim revolutionaries are a big problem).
He acted out of instinct to help the very people he had come to live among, serve and bare witness to. But in retrospect, he determined that the principles of "love thy neighbor" and "do unto others" REQUIRED him to respond.
He explained that he loved his wife and children and wouldn't hesitate to defend them, so how could he not rise up to defend the wife and children of his neighbor? Wasn't this the "brass tacks" of the commandment? Were they of less value?
I've enjoyed THR forum for a month now and have noted that it is often viewed "unwise" to consider defending our neighbors as we would defend ourselves. I know there are a lot of issues involved and if the bad guys don't get you the lawyers probably will. But maybe, just maybe, a generation of men who would put these principals ahead of their own comfort and security could go a long way toward making this world a better place.
Food for thought!
