Maybe I should be able to write about this and sound rational, but i doubt it. Truth is, nothing is rational right now where i live. Here is why i am jumpy. Last week, a man groped two women in the town closest to us, then two in our town, then tried to abduct a teenage girl, then did abduct an elementary school aged girl, who escaped. We live in the middle of nowhere, one hour from the nearest town on either side of us.

 http://edmontonsun.com/News/Alberta/2008/09/11/6736236.html

 On Saturday, a man killed a 14 year old homeschooling girl who was out for a walk in the nearest town to the east, while it was still light, in town. Today, a man tried to abduct another woman and all the schools in that town went into lockdown.

http://www.canada.com/calgaryherald/news/story.html?id=b30fdfa9-438c-4e3a-bffc-47081bafa692

Given these recent events, and the horrific decapitation on the Greyhound bus, http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2008/07/31/greyhound-transcanada.html 

i just plain don't feel safe. I should be able to let my children play in the back yard, but i am too scared. Today i took them for haircuts, to get my vehicle registration renewed, to get groceries.

 Before we went into Walmart, i got the 2 and 4 yo into buggies, and we practiced reacting to my call "Cluster!" - they are all supposed to run and grab onto each other and count off. Am i overreacting? Probably. I hope that the murderer has grievously injured himself and is now dead. I hope the police catch him soon. I wake up at night praying they do, and praying for the Stauffer family in Edson. But it puts life in limbo.

 I'm only hoping it will put some things in perspective in these towns. The way these towns are put together is not sustainable. There are huge "shadow populations" of men living in hotels (2000 in Edson, whose population is 8000). These are men who either don't have families of their own, or who are sacrificing being around their wives and children indefinitely. These are men who drive the incredibly huge pornography market in town (there are no family sizes of peanut butter, ketchup, anything - but there is porn everywhere "because that's where we make our money" says one local shopowner). This is not a way to have a community. Industries have to come up with creative ways of attracting humans to work for them, not drug addicted drifters. Because mark my words, that's what i'm betting this loser is.

In the meantime, our family is in lock down. I took my dd with me to get the mail, held her hand the whole walk (too tight, i kept trying to loosen my grip but couldn't make myself), and got let back into the locked house only after giving the password to my son. This is my life right now.

 And this is sin. Mine and yours. I think my sin only affects me, but the murderer does not know me, has never seen me (i hope) and has no way of knowing how much i am affected by his choice, and yet i am. In the same way, my family is affected by my choices (sinful or righteous) but so are a ton of people i may never meet. I have no sympathy for this person, but i am learning from the situation. and holding onto my little ones.