Dead sea drama Stolen camera catches criminals in Israel The saying said that a picture was worth a thousand words. But what would happen if that picture was stolen? How could it be replaced? One Harding student in the overseas program in Greece (HUG) had to deal with this very situation. Senior Ashley Gay signed up for a semester in Greece before she even transferred to Harding. “I felt that I couldn’t ask more out of a Christian institution of higher learning,”Gay said. “To be able to travel with fellowbelievers, to sit singing among them in places where years before Christians were persecuted or suppressed, to walk the steps of Paul, the climb of Moses — the path of Christ to the cross — amazing, surreal — a blessing to my perspective, to my faith.” But while on a trip to the Dead Sea, Gay’s camera was stolen. The HUG group spent the day at the Dead Sea, and Gay left her camera with Mrs. Debbie Baird, anHonors College and international programs administrator. Somehow in the confusion of taking all the pictures with different camera’s, Gay’s was forgotten. Baird saw a man leave quickly with a bundle wrapped in a towel. Realizing that Gay’s camera was missing, Baird concluded that this man stole the camera. Later, Gay noticed a group of men pointing a camera in her direction, making faces and laughing. Gay looked the men in the eye and attempted to tell them that she thought they had her camera. Not understanding English, Yossi, the group’s guide, mediated, discovering that the memory card had been deleted or switched. Junior Brittany Bowie was on the trip when the camera was stolen. “I was pretty upset,” Bowie said. “Some of our guys looked like they were going to break out in a fight. It was pretty scary being Americans in a foreign country.” The whole ordeal of the camera’s ownership lasted for an hour. “I decided to drop the case because I had no way to prove anything unless we did prints or went into the [police] station,” Gay said. “And if by chance it was theirs, the false accusation would possibly make the papers or be further blown out of proportion. I decided it was not worth the continued struggle since they were not relenting.” Even though Gay was never given her camera back, she was grateful that the event took place. Since the authorities had gotten involved, the police did a background check on the men, and they found out that the men were in the area illegally. The men spent at least one day in jail, a ruling which was given by the highest judge, who had intervened. “Yes, I had walked away from the situation, deciding it not worth the political scandal,” Gay said. “But I remember being grateful for the God who does not walk away from love, from justice and from mercy.” [Michelle Greer] 40 [student life]
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