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| Blade was in shoe for ’safety’ | |
| 2003-12-23 | |
| What was a missionary doing with a razor blade and a hacksaw blade in his shoe at a Miami International Airport security checkpoint? Indeed David McIntyre, 38, a missionary with the Harrisburg, Pa.-based Association of Baptists for World Evangelism, was on his way home from Belo Horizonte, Brazil, with his wife and three children when he was arrested at Concourse B on a charge of carrying a concealed weapon. The shoes were an old pair that McIntyre said he last wore about a year ago, when he was living in a bad neighborhood, getting death threats related to his work and feeling under siege as an American. ’’Put yourself in a trunk of a car: You’re tied up. How are you going to get out?’’ asked McIntyre late Monday afternoon, after spending what he said was one of the worst days of his life. ``So I put a razor blade in a shoe because I was getting specific threats on my life and my safety there, and I thought it was a reasonable precaution.’’ Kidnapping is a growth industry in Brazil. He and his family eventually moved, and the man who had threatened him stopped going to his church.
No surprise there. At 6:20 a.m., in Miami, where he had to change planes to return to Philadelphia for a year’s furlough, he was stopped. His wife and children, along with his checked luggage, continued on without him. He was taken to the Turner-Guilford-Knight Correctional Center, where he was released on bond. Monday evening, he still had no ticket for his return flight. Need to check him out, but the story sounds plausible. | |
| Posted by:Steve |
| #6 I know this missionary and know that his story is true. We are also going to this same area in a year and may also do the same sort of thing for safety. With packing up a household for one year to come back to the states, it is easy to see how he forgot to take the blades out. And to the person who mentioned his church attendance dropping--You couldn't be farther from the truth. It has grown from 80 to over 300 members in a short time because of the true, pure and honest love that Mac has for the people of Brazil. |
| Posted by: Anonymous 2003-12-24 1:52:05 AM |
| #5 Haven't you ever been tempted (after getting up from dinner for the umpteenth time) to go to their meeting/whatever and just stare psychotically at the minister? Never. I can say no more. |
| Posted by: Shipman 2003-12-23 5:29:16 PM |
| #4 Haven't you ever heard of a "safety" razor? |
| Posted by: Sgt.DT 2003-12-23 4:37:51 PM |
| #3 I can buy this story. I once went to Barranquilla, Colombia on business and would have felt a lot safer with a razor in my shoe -- or my pocket. A friend who had been there before me suggested that I leave my wedding ring home because it wasn't worth it to risk losing a finger. My wife agreed. I kissed the ground when I got back to Miami. |
| Posted by: Tom 2003-12-23 3:37:31 PM |
| #2 When I was younger me and my Dad just took turns sleeping. Seriously, the guy could turn a 15-minute speech into 1 1/2 hours. He often did do that. Probably why attendance dropped so much back then. |
| Posted by: Charles 2003-12-23 12:14:53 PM |
| #1 He was a parishioner? Haven't you ever been tempted (after getting up from dinner for the umpteenth time) to go to their meeting/whatever and just stare psychotically at the minister? Never? C'mon... wha? Nobody??? |
| Posted by: snellenr 2003-12-23 11:01:28 AM |