Dangerous Territory

by Amy Peterson

  Sarah:

  yes

  Sarah:

  i see

  Amy:

  but i wonder if you still believe in that?

  Sarah:

  may be

  Sarah:

  but not much when that problem happened

  Sarah:

  i believed in it

  Amy:

  i hope that one day your faith can grow more. there are many difficult things in this life that test our faith

  Sarah:

  but some people made us not believe much

  Sarah:

  bc they said many things we thought not true

  Sarah:

  we believed in u much more than them

  Sarah:

  but may be we need much more time to believe in God

  Amy:

  i know. and you must remember that the most important thing is not to make me happy. the most important thing is to try to love and know the Father

  Sarah:

  yes i know

  Sarah:

  but i knew and believed the father from u

  Amy:

  i know

  Amy:

  do you think that you can talk to Veronica or Cecilia about these things?

  Sarah:

  yes

  Amy:

  all of you need to be able to trust each other too

  Sarah:

  yes

  Sarah:

  pls ask me any thing u want?

  Amy:

  i don’t need to ask you anything

  Amy:

  i just want you to know that i am praying for you

  Amy:

  and that i love you

  Sarah:

  yes

  Sarah:

  thank u so much

  Sarah:

  u pray for me about believing in jesus?

  Sarah:

  i believed in him, I just can’t learn the Bible any more because of these problems

  Amy:

  yes, about that. also i pray for your health and for the safety of your family, and for your friendships

  . . .

  Sarah:

  may be next time i will talk to u many things about that

  Sarah:

  not now

  Amy:

  yes, i understand

  Sarah:

  do u agree?

  Amy:

  maybe later we can talk about many things

  Sarah:

  yes

  Amy:

  yes, i think it is best to be careful about what we say

  Sarah:

  yes

  Sarah:

  i know

  . . .

  Amy:

  ok. i am very happy that i could talk to you today!

  Sarah:

  i’m too

  Sarah:

  i will pray for u

  Amy:

  and i for you

  Sarah:

  yes

  Amy:

  talk to you soon

  Conversation with Cecilia, July 23

  Amy:

  Hello?

  Cecilia:

  Hi

  Cecilia:

  Amy?

  Amy:

  Yes, it’s me, Amy

  Cecilia:

  Are you fine?

  Amy:

  Yes, I am fine. How are you and your family?

  Cecilia:

  We are fine. All things are good

  Cecilia:

  It is so long since I’ve met you online

  Amy:

  I know . . . I have been wondering about you

  Amy:

  But Lisa told me that she chatted with you this week

  Cecilia:

  Yeah, some days ago I met her when she was online

  Amy:

  Have you been having any more troubles like last time I talked to you?

  Cecilia:

  No, now I don’t have any trouble about it

  Amy:

  I’m glad to hear that

  Cecilia:

  Yeah but I’m really sad because my feelings for Sarah aren’t the same as before

  Cecilia:

  She still thinks that in our eyes she is a good friend like before

  Cecilia:

  I can’t be friendly to her like before

  Amy:

  She told me that she wants to be able to talk to both of you like before.

  Amy:

  I know that you must feel that you can’t trust her, right?

  Cecilia:

  I think now she knows how we feel

  Cecilia:

  She made me shocked when I met the policeman. She told him . . .

  Amy:

  I know

  Amy:

  But I want to remind you of a story: do you remember the story of Peter?

  Amy:

  He betrayed his Teacher three times

  Amy:

  But after that, he realized that he was wrong and he wanted to be forgiven

  Cecilia:

  I know . . . but sometimes when i think about it I can’t stand it

  Cecilia:

  I often tell Veronica that I haven’t any noble feelings

  Cecilia:

  . . . but in fact that my feeling for Sarah is broken

 
Amy:

  You know that the Father can restore all feelings and all relationships

  Amy:

  Restore—means fix, heal

  Amy:

  You need to ask him to help you forgive her

  Cecilia:

  I know

  Amy:

  and maybe one day he will give you help

  Cecilia:

  you know i don’t have my Bible anymore

  Cecilia:

  they took all my things away from me

  Amy:

  I know, I feel very sorry about that

  Cecilia:

  he took the photograph of you and me and Sarah

  . . .

  Cecilia:

  I don’t like the way the police talk about you and many things

  Amy:

  I think he told you many lies

  Cecilia:

  I must tell you that my belief has decreased. I want to learn about the Bible but only with you and I don’t want to have another relation with any others (like Philip)

  Cecilia:

  But Veronica told Philip that we want two more Bibles and he agreed to get them for us

  Cecilia:

  but you know i only want to read it. I don’t want to meet together like Philip asked us to do when we were in Nicole’s house

  Cecilia:

  And I don’t want to meet the police again, and hear them say bad things about my teacher

  Amy:

  You know that I love your people and your country. And you are my friend and student and sister. I would never do anything to hurt you.

  Amy:

  And you must also know that the Father loves you and he loves you even when you have some doubt

  Cecilia:

  I know

  Amy:

  What the Father asks is difficult. He asks you to follow him, and there are many trials. You must consider that before you decide what you will do.

  Amy:

  Step by step

  Cecilia:

  I will try

  Cecilia:

  I understand what you are saying to me now

  Amy:

  You should not follow the Father to make me happy. Only if it is something that in your heart He is calling you to do.

  Cecilia:

  It really comes from my heart, with the thing I think about you and I really want to protect my teacher, my friend and my sister

  Amy:

  I am safe in the father’s hand

  Amy:

  and so are you.

  Cecilia:

  Yeah

  Amy:

  I hope that this trial and problem can make you stronger

  Cecilia:

  I think so

  Cecilia:

  I remember some sentence in Corinthians but i can’t remember it in English

  Amy:

  It’s ok

  Amy:

  When you are weak, then you are strong

  . . .

  Amy:

  Do all of your classmates know about what happened?

  Amy:

  Do they treat you normally or strange?

  Cecilia:

  Some of them know cause Sarah told them. Some of them act very guarded and secret now.

  Though Veronica and I had been close in her country, we didn’t meet online very often. Both of us were concerned about the possibility of the police watching or recording our communications, and I hoped that if we just stayed quiet for the summer, the danger would die down.

  She still spent a large amount of time online, though, and made friends with a guy named Josh. He was American, from the South, in his twenties, a Christian. They’d talk for hours about the Bible and God. He was also married—unhappily—to a woman addicted to cocaine.

  I was not a fan of Josh. His relationship with Veronica quickly grew emotionally intimate, and seemed highly inappropriate for a married man. I worried that Veronica was falling for him, and that he was using her. But there were so many things going on in Veronica’s life that I didn’t want to make too big of an issue about this one. She was so lonely that I couldn’t argue very compellingly against this one relationship with the only person she felt she could regularly talk to about God.

  Anyway, Josh wasn’t the only one acting with mixed motivations. He may have been using her for companionship while his marriage was failing, but he was probably also genuinely concerned for her, sincerely praying for her. Veronica might have been flattered by the attention of an American man, but she was also hungry for someone to discuss the Bible with. She was in love with Jesus, but she might also have been figuring out a way to understand who she was in general.

  And I—I had wanted to save the world, to have a significant life, to have adventures and freedom and to be one of heaven’s heroes. In Veronica I’d found an explanation of who I was: a teacher, a messenger—an identity I could settle happily into.

  Maybe we were all using each other to figure out who we were.

  Conversation with Veronica, July 26

  Amy:

  Hello?

  Veronica:

  Hi Amy

  Veronica:

  I’m Veronica

  Amy:

  Hi Veronica!

  Amy:

  How are you?

  Veronica:

  I’m doing well, what about you and your family?

  Amy:

  We are all fine, thanks

  Veronica:

  2 days ago, I met Hannah (a classmate who was present at Nicole’s house that day), and she said one policeman called her

  Amy:

  Really?

  Veronica:

  And he said that he would continue to “investigate”

  Veronica:

  He said he was busy for a while, but now he’s free, so he will continue to investigate

  Amy:

  Well, I think we can be sure that he will continue to investigate us next year . . . we must be careful

  Veronica:

  I know. We will have nothing to say but our Spirit will speak, lol!

  Veronica:

  I wonder what he has to investigate? />
  Veronica:

  There is nothing else

  Veronica:

  We are legitimate. We’re not breaking any law.

  Veronica:

  My parents say the law doesn’t matter. When the police want it to be black, it’s black. When they want it to be white, it’s white. They can change white into black.

  Amy:

  Your parents are right. The police will not care about the written laws—they will do what they want to do

  Veronica:

  When you come back, we will still be friendly as the old days. I’m not so worried

  Amy: