{December Stories 1} For December, Ill be posting stories from my life. Some will be funny (I have a few left), some serious, are some are accounts of times when I learned an important lesson. Heres the first one from our visit to Romania in 2006... Bucharest is located in the southeast corner of Romania and is the capital city. It is not normally a tourist destination for Americans, so the people looked at us strange. They love Americans though, which was a relief! 2.3 million people call the area home and there are people everywhere. It is a dirty city and the traffic is the worst Ive ever experienced, but the people are very kind. There are a lot of poor people and it seems as if poverty is a big problem. Our translator picked us up at the airport. His sign said, Flight Delayed? Know where youre going? Got Questions? GotQuestions.org It was so cool! What a guy! He got us and all our luggage on a very crowded bus (trust me, not a good experience). Then we drug our luggage through crowded downtown to an authentic Romanian restaurant. After dinner, our translator hailed 2 taxis -- one for Shea and me and one for my parents. Shea told our translator to go with my parents. The translator hurriedly told the taxi driver where to take Shea and me and the taxi took off, leaving the other taxi in the dust. We drove and drove and drove in the dark for a long time. The traffic was so scary that I spent some of the time with my head in my lap... too scared to look out. If there were 2 lanes of traffic, the drivers would make more lanes, just driving everywhere... on the sidewalk... on the wrong side of the road... wherever there was room to squeeze through. It was crazy. We narrowly avoided several accidents. The taxi driver didnt speak English, so we just sat in silence and we drove and drove into some very scary parts of town. The first thing I noticed was the packs of stray hungry dogs! Then it hit me! Shea and I are in a strange country, we dont have any local phone numbers, we dont know our translator’s phone number, we dont speak Romanian, and we have no idea where the taxi is supposed to drop us off. He could drop us off anywhere in this city and we wouldnt know any different! We had no ability to contact anyone to help us. After what seemed like an eternity of driving, the taxi pulled into this narrow, dark alley. I looked at Shea and saw the concern in his eyes. I grabbed his hand. We were both thinking the same thing. The headline would read, Bucharest Taxi driver kills Americans and steals all their belongings, leaving them to be eaten by the stray hungry dogs... Oh wow. Please God... I dont really want to get eaten by dogs! If hes going to kill us, help it be fast The taxi stopped in the alley. There was no way I was getting out of the car! The man would have to drag me out kicking and screaming. We all sat there in dark silence... I know 2 people in the car were fervently praying! We just sat there for a few minutes. Finally, the driver put the car in reverse and drove backward out of the dark alley. We werent sure what was going on... was this good or bad? He pulled into a nearby dark parking lot and again we sat in silence. I looked at Shea and again my eyes said, Im not getting out of this car! After the longest 5 minutes of my life, the other taxi finally pulled up next to us. Our translator had a very relieved look on his face. Our translator hopped out of the taxi and apologized over and over. He admitted to being careless in not giving us his phone number or telling us where we would be staying the night. We all praised God for safety and protection. The house we stayed at while in Bucharest was down the next dark alley, but it was enclosed in a tall wall and used as a house for missionaries who were visiting town. What a joy to stay in this home with a beautiful Romanian family and their dog. Their children spoke English and liked to practice with us. As I crawled into bed that night, I was reminded that God is our protection and our strong wall! Its a lesson Ive learned time and time again.
Posted on: Mon, 01 Dec 2014 21:15:05 +0000
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