The religious culture I'm from is big on the "leaders" controlling people.
We went to Bolivia on a mission of a definite agreed upon time frame. The agreement was that we go for seven weeks, several days before we were scheduled to go, said "leader" announced that he got the tickets for nine weeks. I promptly told him we're not going for nine weeks. If he doesn't change the tickets back to seven weeks we're not going at all. He complained that it'll cost quite a bit to change them, I asked him if he wants us to go or not? He changed the tickets to a seven week time frame.
Fast forward to being close to the time for us to come back was when borders were being closed due to covid. He knew of it several days before hand and would have had time to get us on a plane homeward bound several days early, but, here's where the control comes into play. He in his lust for control pre-meditated that closed borders would mean us not being able to come home at the agreed upon time frame, therefore keeping us there longer than we agreed too. It worked, we were there for thirteen weeks. The US was offering emergency flights for US citizens to come back to the states. I contacted this fellow about that option and requested that he do what he can to help us. Several days later I hadn't heard anything from him, so I called him from my laptop and asked what he had done to get things moving, he said he was on the phone with ticket agencies trying to figure out what could be done, but he wasn't getting anywhere with it. I told him that we need to get back to the states because we have responsibilities there that we need to be responsible for. Well come to find out he wasn't even contacting the right agencies. I pushed him pretty hard and he said he's not very computer literate so it's a struggle for him. I insisted enough that he finally agreed to contact two other men and let them try to help me. I left it at that for the next three days and nobody was contacting me about anything which was unusual of the men he mentioned (I knew who he meant).
Toward the end of that time frame I called both of those men and they knew nothing about the issue, he had not called either of them to tell them to help us. By that time though we had contacted the US Embassy in Bolivia and were working with them in getting tickets to the US. Once those two men that supposedly had been contacted, but knew nothing of the stuation, found out what was going on they jumped right on it and within the next 48 hours along with working with the US Embassy we had return tickets to come home.
Well that should have worked out fine, but this same "leader" contacted the person/driver that would have driven us to the nearest small airport and told him to not give us a ride and that "we are on our own" to get to the airport. In that case it would have been impossible for us to get out because we did not know any spanish and it would have been impossible for us to communicate with the local authorities.
Travel was much, much more resricted in Bolivia than here in the US.
I felt deserted by the "leader" who "sent" us.
In a sort of desperation I went to this person/driver and asked him to take us to the nearest bigger city which would give us more options. He agreed to do it, although he had been told not to by this same "leader". He over-rode the "leaders authority" because he felt that I was asking for a legitimate need and he was able to give it to me.
We are forever thankful that the "driver" was sensitive to our need and helped us which when I think about it has a healing effect on me.
P.S. This is almost traumatic in the recalling of what all happened, but I think it's good for me to talk about it because it also has a healing effect. So please don't hold back on asking additional questions, because it might be an avenue of healing for me by discussing it with others.
I've been taking long naps too. Tired lately.
