Highway Assault

It's 12:40am & I'm exhausted. Today I thought I'd be writing about the challenging crossing of the Costa Rican mountains suspended within raging tropical storms, or about the scorpian bite that floored me. Perhaps even write about the radio interview with Light FM in Melbourne to air on Tuesday morning or the large photo & article in the Costa Rican national newspaper & coverage of the walk4one on the nightly news. Maybe even write about the beautiful hospitality of Damian & Tatiana Burger here in San Jose... but that's not where the week has ended up. In fact, I've only just arrived home from the San Jose Courthouse following a road side assault. At around 2pm, with my very first group of walkers (11 in total) accompanying me to the next destination, we crossed a large bridge high above a canyon. As we approached the end of the bridge four young men with shirts tied around their heads ran across the highway & acted to walk past us, only to spread themselves along the group before producing long-blade knives which were speedily thurst in our direction. Being at the front I had the honour of getting the leader of the gang who was insistent on getting his knife as close to my abdomen as possible. One by one they frantically stripped us of everything valuable & lined us up against the railing as traffic continued to flow past. With a final grab for jewellery the four men ran off down along the bridge with my backpack, 3 other backpacks, cameras, mobile phones, wallets, watches & sunglasses. Incredibly, as they started to run, two motorbike police rode past & we were able to draw their attention to what was happening. I swear, within 30 seconds there were around 10 police vehicles screaming through the traffic as Damian & I gave chase on foot across the bridge. Our sprint through the highway traffic though soon came to a rapid hault as the Police began to open fire on the 4 thieves as they made for an escape down off the end of the bridge. The four men split & made off in different directions through the canyon & no one was apprahended, but the circus had only just began. With 6 lanes of traffic stopped, police cars everywhere & a news crew on the scene it was hardly the place to quietly debrief & regroup. To cut a long story short though, three bags were eventually recovered (including mine, though minus $2000 worth of gear) & one man arrested. Everyone was visibly shaken from todays proceedings & we thankfully did get an oppurtunity to eat a late lunch together, debrief a little & pray - including for the four assailants.Damian, Tatiana & I then spent a couple of hours at the police station followed by another couple of hours at the courthouse playing "flip the coin into the cup" while they processed the arrest. We had the oppurtunity to later meet the man they had arrested - he was 16 years old. He was incredibly ashamed & very quite as he stood there looking at the floor. We introduced ourselves & I explained why we had been walking. I gave him a World Youth Day postcard/invitation & Damian popped some rosary beads into his hand. He looked up, smiled & said thankyou, before tentitavly extending his hand. We each shook hands & he once again bowed his head & returned to his cell. Two hours later I saw him entering the court house still holding his postacrd and beads - the kid wasn't the ring leader. His name is Danny if you'd like to offer a few prayers for him. Finally though, we are back home & contemplating nothing more than the blessings of a comfortable bed. Tomorrow will be a non-walking day as I try to sort out replacement gear (including the camera - sorry, no pics this time round). Many of the others still have mobile phones, watches and cameras unaccounted for as well so it will most likely be long day for them too. They are the Costa Rican World Youth Day group for 2008, so we hope to meet each other again in Sydney & perhaps, at pilgrims end, finish what we started. God bless, Sam. Goodnight...
"Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails." 1Cor13:6-7