Lonehill: Attacked - 3 Gunmen Storm OUR Home!

There's nothing like the cold barrel of a 9mm parabellum against your forehead to clear your sinuses.

At 5 p.m.yesterday evening, 3 armed gunmen - well-dressed, well-spoken and looking like super-efficient police-detectives - stormed our home and placed their guns against my business partner's and my heads... demanding '..where's your gun, where's your safe, and where's your money'. None of which are on our premises.

It is only by God's GRACE and the presence of mind of my business partner who calmly got me to lie down and follow their instructions that we were not shot. My wife carrying our 4 week-old grand-daughter had even greater presence of mind to see them enter my Home Office and managed to slip out to hide in the garden.

I'm told by my partner that I was kicked and roughed up on the ground, but I recall nothing of that, except that I have a pretty painful hip area that I can't account for.

They then demanded that we show them a room that they could lock us up in, thankfully right next to my office... and locked the two of us in there, whereupon we heard them leave with my partners vehicle parked outside and a getaway car.

My wife heard them leave and bravely came back to press the panic and set us free

The shock and speed of the attack left me literally numbed in shock and I'm still wondering how I didn't soil my pants, although my business partner tells me that my sole concern was in stressing for the safety my wife and grandchild who I could not see... I can't recall in the blur.

My life didn't flash before me, none of those things. Just stunned numbness.

Here's my belief, that they were on a mission to attack someone and clearly were attracted by the vehicle on our driveway indicating people inside. The vehicle blocked direct line-of-sight access to our front door entrance. So they had clearly got out of their vehicle to attack our home regardless of what they confronted. My wife had also just returned home some minutes before. That's frightening!

Now, it's no secret that I am not at all enamoured with the LRA's lack of commitment to critical service delivery excellence, especially when it comes to our mission for this community - to provide safety and security for all to enjoy (to paraphrase).

When we launched this initiative we drew a line in the sand around our perimeter and said 'no further'.

Today that line is the hairline on the sights of a gunman's weapon and it is aimed at our foreheads.

That's not right..!

I am acutely aware that LRA leadership is not enamoured with me.... but here's the thing that I have always being striving for... it is not about the personalities and the internal politics of people playing silly games on the LRA, but about who is most effective at keeping us safe and secure in our community.

We are clearly not safe in our homes in Lonehill any longer, and like we did in 2000... and again some three-odd years ago... something now needs to be shaken up once again.

I am giving my LRA 'friends', past and present, who know my true open feelings about some of them and their actions (or lack thereof) to which we are clearly in disagreement (as expressed again between ourselves last night) an opportunity to contact me today with plans for how they will open up to people like myself again for us all to work together on this challenge to our families safety and security in this Lonehill initiative. For me, they have been ignoring the concerns expressed in this forum for too long. And, they can be addressed simply with competent people who do not have fragile egos.

My offer will be to bring a team of 3 to 5 of the finest facilitators, conflict resolution specialists, disruptive innovators and strategic thinkers in my network to an urgent 3 -hour, totally transparent, OPEN, critical situation analysis and solutions brainstormer of current LRA information, to ensure that past badwill is put far behind us (they will shut me up as they know my respect for them) and ensure that solutions are found for going forward with clear strategic goals and action plans understood by the entire community.

Being a God-fearing fundamental Christian man of very basic street-wise up-bringing, leanings and brash character, who has no idea why God's sense of humour seems to be to throw us into such situations to see how we will respond (although I believe we are all born with a purpose to fulfill on this planet), I will be approaching local community church leaders/elders today for much-needed spiritual counseling to bring humility to bear in this so-badly-flawed human-being as I prepare to muster willing troops once again to take on this evil now again being allowed to wander freely into our midst.

This call to the Almighty piddled people off when we launched the initiative back in 2000, but we succeeded with action supported by committed prayer groups. And, I believe I know why. So I am about to piddle people off again... but that's tough. This evil element attacking us does not worry if you are atheist, Christian, Jew, Muslim, Hindu or Gentile... or whatever your belief or non-belief. And I don't have any problem with your foundation belief either, I'm not out here to convert you - you should be mature enough to fathom your beliefs for yourself given all the information at our fingertips, but let's just bring every 'weapon' in our community armoury to bear in succeeding once again at this community challenge. I'm just going to ask for DIVINE support, is all. YOU can bring whatever GOOD resources YOU can muster to the party. You won't piddle me off... ;- )

If you wish to offer words of counseling, guidance, help, support or just plain honest-to-goodness criticism of self, please let me know and I'll keep you in the loop as to what transpires.

Regards
Trevor Nel - Lonehill Resident
011 - 705-2790