Something Sane about Snowden and Sutay

Along with the infamous whistle-blower Snowden, there's another guy about his same age named Kevin Scott Sutay who recently did something equally strange.

Was it stupid, dumb, and idiotic?

Probably, but for some reason both these guys have really caught my attention.

For one, they're both about as old as I am (Snowden is 30, Sutay is 27 - I'm 28), and for another, it doesn't really seem that there's anything that incredibly wrong with either of them - they're both just highly mischievous and daring people.

Time might tell what each of these guys' intentions are, but whatever they may be - regardless, it seems that they're trying to get something across.

I'm pretty sure you've all heard of Snowden, but for those of you who haven't heard of Sutay - well, he's a former U.S. soldier who served some time in Afghanistan and, after resigning from the Army, went on an adventure trip through Central America till finally making it to Colombia and down to San Jose* (the South Eastern jungle town where I used to serve as a missionary).

Kevin Scott Sutay in San Jose a couple days before he was kidnapped

Without knowing a lick of Spanish, he spent a couple of days in the town, raised a few eyebrows, then signed a couple of papers freeing the police from any responsibility towards him as he walked South to the "less than secure" town of El Retorno, where he was last seen by an evangelical pastor who took him in for a couple of nights.*

Kidnapped on the 20th of June 2013, the FARC has held him now for exactly 2 months, and they say that as a diplomatic gesture of cooperation in light of its current peace process with the Colombian government - they will release him - provided the government will let them use the right political personalities as the intermediaries in the process.*

The whole situation is really awkward because as part of the peace talks the FARC is having with the government, the guerrillas shouldn't have even kidnapped Kevin in the first place (as if the act of kidnapping people period were acceptable), but they defend their actions since Sutay used to serve in the US Army (and therefore in their minds he's a military threat).

I strongly disagree with that assertion, but what gets me is... why?

Why did Kevin just randomly decide to hit up one of the more dangerous regions in the whole country just to walk into the hands of the FARC?

...Some sources say he did it because he wanted to "walk" to Puerto Inirida* (which seems pretty far fetched because if that were the case, then he would have gone directly East, not South), and a few other sources say it's because he wanted to visit the indigenous communities of the Nukak* {which maybe has a little more credibility to it, but when I was there [which was just a couple weeks after his abduction], there was a whole community of people from this very ethnic group that were actually staying in the town's basketball coliseum, and plus! there are a couple indigenous communities that are a lot closer to town than Cheka-Muj (which is the only other option of where there's another Nukak community that is in the general direction of where Sutay was headed)}...

San Jose to Puerto Inirida (not likely)

So see, if I were him, and if I were wanting to learn about the Nukak, what I would have done was that I would have stayed in town and talked to the only other people besides them who actually speak their language (who are my missionary friends that live in San Jose) and asked them to introduce them to me... I wouldn't just go off into the jungle to hopefully stumble across them on my own...

So that's why I think there's something fishy about all this, and I honestly think there's got to be another reason besides the ones given, for why Kevin Scott Sutay randomly decided to walk into guerrilla controlled territory...

Maybe he did it because he wanted to provoke the whole world [which if that was his intention - he definitely accomplished it (or at least for the whole world of US/Colombian/FARC politics he did)], and maybe he also did it thinking that he would have a free way out (which if the guerrillas keep their word - he will).

But is Sutay really that smart?

I don't know, but what I do know is that the guy has guts.

Maybe his guts are a little nuts, but regardless, there seems to be a sense in which Kevin decided that there was something worth pursuing that was more important than his very life.

...And it's the same with Snowden. Maybe the guy was wrong for doing what he did, but I will say this - I envy people with the attitude of having enough courage to tell the whole world the truth, even if doing so will cost them their lives...

Because that's essentially what Jesus of Nazareth called us to do... to pursue Him and to tell the truth about his gospel to the whole world even if it will cost us everything (Luke 9:23).

Are we willing?

A couple of guys around my age were willing to give it all up for an un-understandable cause... The question I have is if we are willing to give it all up for one we understand? (Luke 12:48).

Or is it that we don't understand?

...If the answer to the first question is no, somehow I find that to be a sadder state to be in than the second...

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Works Cited:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-07-20/u-s-vet-ignored-warnings-before-abduction-by-colombian-rebels.html
http://www.cnn.com/2013/07/20/world/americas/colombia-farc-american-release
http://www.eltiempo.com/noticias/kevin-scott-sutay
http://farc-ep.co/?p=2466

Pictures Cited:
http://abcnews.go.com/US/nsa-leaker-edward-snowden-whistle-blower/story?id=19374578
http://www.eltiempo.com/justicia/ARTICULO-WEB-NEW_NOTA_INTERIOR-12955722.html
http://search.infobae.com/Estados-Unidos
http://www.richardmccoll.com/tag/kevin-scott-sutay/