Sir,
I met a wonderful woman nine years ago and have been happily married ever since. I lost my job 3 years ago, (but I thank God that I am employed now), and that was the turning point in my life as far as researching the economy, world events, digging back into Bible prophecy, starting a garden, renewing my pistol permit, joined a club, bought a few more guns, in response to the writing on the wall due to the research I’ve done into current events and legislation that are changing this nation fast.
I live in a suburban area just eight miles outside a capitol city, (in New England) and with my income, see no chance of relocating to the country. I grew up in a rural town with population 2,500, but moved to the city upon getting married to start a career in real estate. This was 2004, and we all know how real estate is doing now.
My wife is from Lima, Peru (South America) and she is about as far away from the prepper mindset as one could imagine. I would think that being from a country with no government assistance or help, and lots of poverty, that she would be well tuned to planning ahead, but she is not. They pretty much live from hand to mouth there, perhaps because there is no money to buy extras. They have no concept (or means) to save money or stock up on anything.
When we had the freak snow storm this past October, here in New England, we were without heat and electricity for 10 days. We were able to cook though via a gas stove, but it was still a wake up call. We ran the generator and cooked some food that I had stored. That was a great “test run” for me and I consider it a great learning experience as to how many holes I had in my preparations.
I have been trying to introduce her little by little to a few web sites that show what is going on around the world and the critical economic situation we are in, and she can see that crime is increasing all around us. We are Bible believing Christians, and she seems to be of the mind set that if you are prepping, storing food, storing water, gas, guns and ammo that you are a fanatic and don’t really trust in God to provide. Plus, no one she ever knew in her country ever stored lots of supplies and everything seemed to turn out well.
I think she is of the mind set that God will protect us and take care of us. I say amen to that, but in the same breathe, the Bible tells us to have wisdom and if we see trouble to be prepared: “A prudent person foresees danger and takes precautions. The simpleton goes blindly on and suffers the consequences.” Proverbs 22:3
I believe that as the economy gets worse and things start to come undone even more, and if we have a few more outages, then I am hoping she will finally be convinced that having extra items on hand, is an exercise of wisdom.
The firearms are another challenge. In her country, only the robbers have guns, and the government does not allow guns to be owned by everyone, because “the government does not trust the people with guns.” How convenient. So, needless to say, my wife does not complain when I have my G21 on the bed stand, but does not understand why I would want to carry it with me concealed when we go out, or why I need to go to the range or IDPA on a regular basis.
Another challenge I have and see this with a lot of immigrants, is that they do not seem to be convinced that things in this nation are really that bad. After all, this is the “promised land” and “the land of opportunity”. This nation has a standard of living so much better than where she came from, that even if things are bad here from our point of view, things are so much better than in her country, that it is hard to convince her that our government is corrupt, and that our nation is broke. She also looks at this nation as a “good” nation and that justice reigns here, thinking that the cops and government will indeed punish people for doing bad things. She is unaware as to how twisted and biased our judicial system has become, and how the laws are being changed to strip us of our freedoms.
I think she believes that if there was rioting, that the boys in blue would come to the rescue to protect us from roving gangs and rioters. She also sees living in the country as an inconvenience with all the extra time and money spend on gas commuting back and forth, and not being close to friends. She simply does not get the concept of me spending time and money on a garden when we can simply go 1 mile down the road to the grocery store.
I don’t think she also sees how dependant we are on utilities, and that even in America, if things go bad, those utilities may not be available. I don’t think she is totally convinced that things will ever be so bad in America that grocery stores will be empty, no gas and no utilities…after all this is the land of plenty.
So, here is my challenge, prepping by myself with someone who does not understand the reasons why I am “wasting money on buying these things”, and living with someone whom I cannot share with regarding my preparations for likely hard times coming.
Hopefully, when the storm comes, she will thank me for being a prepper. – B.W. in New England