I want to tell you the story of The Train, or at least, his story through my eyes. I know that Mozambicans don’t have the kind of privacy concerns we do, but out of deference, I’ll call him by his nickname. When we first met him, he was in prison. He got radically saved there and gave up his life of robbery. When he got out, he had no family, no job, and no home. We prayed about his situation and the situation of some of the other prisoners, and felt led to offer four of them positions on base. A couple of Mozambicans gently tried to talk us out of it – they were dangerous people, once a criminal, always a criminal, we’re putting the lives of the people on base in danger etc. They rolled their eyes at the crazy Americans who didn’t understand that people don’t just give up their old ways and become a different person. I understood their criticism, but we felt strongly that God was calling us to give them jobs and that He could turn their lives around.
One of the workers quit in a week, another a bit later (don’t remember when), but The Train and another prisoner nick-named Rice kept on going strong. The Train found a wife and a home and started a completely new life, free of crime. When I went home 6 months later, I told the story at multiple churches and to many friends – the story of how God totally turned this guy’s life around. To be honest, The Train was a lot louder than Rice – Rice just carried on quietly while The Train would talk your ear off, so I normally focused way more on The Train because I knew more of his story.
After a year and a half of working at the base and doing great, some rumors began to circulate about how The Train was starting to get involved in crime again. We ignored the rumors for the most part, but then the police came by once and The Train jumped the back wall to avoid them. I sat him down and talked to him, but he insisted nothing was wrong. He was shortly after fired by his supervisor (against my wishes, but his supervisor was a Brazilian guy who wouldn’t take no for an answer).
1 or 2 days later, a plain-clothed officer from the secret police showed up at our base wanting to talk. He told us that The Train wasn’t just wanted for robbery, but that he was the ringleader of the most dangerous group of armed robbers in the area and had access to machine guns and other weapons. The officer wanted for us to call The Train back into work (using paperwork or a check as an excuse) while his men set up a perimeter with snipers and captured him when he came back in. After talking to the officer, the guards came up to me visibly shaken, saying that for the last couple hours, there had been a sniper sitting in the bushes watching the entrance to our base. I was willing to do what the secret police said, but the Brazilian insisted that we tell the officer we would obey but never call The Train – that it was too dangerous with all the kids and the Bible school students on base to risk a shootout. Well, I hadn’t exactly read the manual on how to deal with secret police and stakeouts in Mozambique, so assuming the Brazilian knew what he was doing, I went along with him.
The cops ended up finding The Train the week after, and arrested him at a bus stop. He didn’t show up at the jail for 2-3 weeks – they kept him at the police station so he would have 24 hour surveillance. To our faces, he insisted that he did nothing wrong and was being framed. However, he started bragging to the other inmates about how he knew every inch of our ministry base, where the computers were kept, where the money was, etc. and his gang was going to bust in at any time. Some of the other inmates that really respected us thought it was an evil thing The Train was planning and warned the jail ministry team. The guards also warned us, so The Train must have been talking a lot!
When the jail ministry team told me, we prayed about it then decided to send them back under the Matt. 18 rules of dealing with a brother who sinned – give him a 2nd chance; if he turns back, you’ve won over a brother. The Train was silent after that, but kept insisting to my face and to Carla’s that he was set up. To make matters worse, The Train’s wife came to us, asking us for help for her and her newborn baby girl because they were starving and had no way to make money. We provided food for her for a month and gave her supplies to start a small business transporting goods.
I thought I had done everything right – we treated The Train with kindness and love, even when he was talking about robbing the center, and we even looked after his family! But the whole incident messed me up quite a bit. After we heard The Train was been plotting to break in, I got a bit scared, especially because we had the most computers in our house (I repaired them on the side so we usually had 5-6 at a time), not to mention the base money safe in the back room! For weeks, I would wake up to the slightest noise and stay awake for hours, making neurotic trips around my house with a flashlight to make sure no one was there. I was frustrated at God:
“God, didn’t you know he would turn back?”
Yes, but I had to give him a chance.
“A CHANCE?!? You put my life in danger even though you knew The Train would go back to crime?”
Yes.
“But, but… I told churches about this! Now, if anyone asks, I’ll have to tell them that The Train turned back. Don’t you care about that?”
Not really.
“How about all the Mozambicans that didn’t believe you could transform the life of a criminal? Don’t you care that they’ll still believe you can’t deliver them?
Other things are more important than my reputation.
“Why would you make me suffer so much just so this man can mess up again?”
Because I love him.
I got really bitter at that. I had spent years trying to help God’s reputation and live out testimonies of things He was doing, but he didn’t care about that. I started to realize God’s love for this one man, but instead of focusing on His love for The Train, I focused on how little my life must mean to Him to treat it so flippantly. Of course, that’s also silly – God kept us perfectly safe, too. Carla said the incident reminded her of the parable of the shepherd – that God leaves the 99 sheep untended and in danger to go after the one lost sheep.
It was the first time I can think of that I was actually scandalized by grace. We talk about grace so often when it applies to us, but how about when it applies to others? How about the ones that take 2nd or 3rd or 4th chances to turn around? And how about the biblical call to be Christ-like, even with the amounts of grace we show?
The other thing that gets me about the experience is how much I focus on The Train. There were so many others that were imprisoned, got saved, and had their lives transformed. Lino, the leader of the jail ministry, Edward our guard, Rice one of the construction workers… But I think of the one time we failed far more often than the many times we succeeded. That seems to be human nature, but that doesn't mean that's how I should think - I would drive myself crazy.
Yes.
“But, but… I told churches about this! Now, if anyone asks, I’ll have to tell them that The Train turned back. Don’t you care about that?”
Not really.
“How about all the Mozambicans that didn’t believe you could transform the life of a criminal? Don’t you care that they’ll still believe you can’t deliver them?
Other things are more important than my reputation.
“Why would you make me suffer so much just so this man can mess up again?”
Because I love him.
I got really bitter at that. I had spent years trying to help God’s reputation and live out testimonies of things He was doing, but he didn’t care about that. I started to realize God’s love for this one man, but instead of focusing on His love for The Train, I focused on how little my life must mean to Him to treat it so flippantly. Of course, that’s also silly – God kept us perfectly safe, too. Carla said the incident reminded her of the parable of the shepherd – that God leaves the 99 sheep untended and in danger to go after the one lost sheep.
It was the first time I can think of that I was actually scandalized by grace. We talk about grace so often when it applies to us, but how about when it applies to others? How about the ones that take 2nd or 3rd or 4th chances to turn around? And how about the biblical call to be Christ-like, even with the amounts of grace we show?
The other thing that gets me about the experience is how much I focus on The Train. There were so many others that were imprisoned, got saved, and had their lives transformed. Lino, the leader of the jail ministry, Edward our guard, Rice one of the construction workers… But I think of the one time we failed far more often than the many times we succeeded. That seems to be human nature, but that doesn't mean that's how I should think - I would drive myself crazy.
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