Being Prepared

Nearly a month ago, I traveled to Riobamba on the bus with the Curtises. We had lunch, and as I extracted my wallet from my backpack to pay for my lunch, I saw that my money, my credit card, my debit card and Ecuadorian ID were all gone! Quickly I reviewed in my mind any opportunities anyone might have had to get into my backpack (it turns out my camara was gone too!) and realized it had happened on the bus. I always keep my backpack snugly under my legs. Apparently when I had fallen asleep, the person behind me had pulled my backpack under the seat and close enough to him to go through it and take out what he wanted.

Interestingly, if he had taken the whole wallet, I would have hesitated, thinking I might have left it at home by mistake, or dropped it along the way. But removing everything and putting the wallet back was proof that I had been robbed. I quickly called Chris and later Jessie who immediately called and canceled the cards. Nonetheless, the two-hour (or so) time frame between the robbery and my report to the bank was sufficient to allow the thief to run up $11,500 in charges on my credit and debit cards! Fortunately, banks are much more used to this kind of thing than I am; all charges were removed and I was made whole.

Except. . . I had to get through three weeks in an all-cash economy with no way to access the cash that was sitting in a bank in the US. The Curtises kindly covered all my expenses while I was in Riobamba. But how would I buy groceries, pay for transportation, pay utility bills until replacement cards could be sent from the US?

I can't remember now why I did it, but I brought cash with me one-and-a-half years ago and kept it as a rainy-day fund. All of my senior missionary friends immediately leapt to my aid, offering to provide cash while I waited for my cards. I was able to tell them I was all right, for now. The Curtises realized they had a pretty large hole in their own emergency preparations and set aside some cash. Last week, Elder Curtis misplaced his wallet on the bus. He got it back a day later--completely intact--which is a miraculous story, truly, in and of itself. But of course by then they had canceled their cards and are now in the same position I was, except they too have cash on hand.

This isn't really a story about cash. It's a story about being prepared. You could easily substitute the words "food" and start thinking about what would happen if you suddenly, for whatever reason, didn't have any. Of course your friends and family would help you out, but what if they couldn't because they didn't have access to their food/money either because the disruption was more widespread than a single individual?

On the other hand, I was able to continue working, eating, traveling and doing all that was required of me without missing a beat. How grateful I am for whatever inspiration told me to be prepared!