A Car Is NOT A Truck

Shalom school has officially recommenced after a wonderfully relaxing two week break. For the break, the whole gang (to use an �old-people� word,) went to a town called Panajachel which has a HUGE beautiful lake with a volcano on the other side who�s base gently slopes into the lake. We ate at a restaurant that had a wide view of the lake and volcano. I ordered �jumbo shrimp� thinking of getting something like at Captain D�s, but the plate came back with four big shrimp on it; with all the legs, eyes, and antennas. Thankfully their �end of food processing systems� had been removed. Eating these little critters was quite a chore that I wish not to repeat. I prefer the lazy idea of �popcorn shrimp.� When I got the bill, the food was WAY more expensive than I had originally thought; I guess I just read the menu incorrectly.

After coming back to the city from Pana, I worked a lot more on the Shalom Sponsorship database and design of the new Shalom Foundation website. I am coming along nicely, and can�t wait to finish it all before getting back to the Sates. Seven more days! I can�t believe it!

Ok, now for the big story of what happened just hours ago and is inevitably why I am sitting here so late at night updating my website when I need to be sleeping so I can wake up at 5AM. This evening after dinner, I helped move Jennie over to Kenneth and Diana�s house to stay since Mark has family staying at his house this week. I helped her unload and drop everything off at Kenneth�s house and then we headed out to grab some dessert.

We ended up going to a restaurant called �Los Cebollietes� or �Little Onions,� and had some good-ole Neapolitan ice cream. After eating it up, we headed out on the only one-way street we could get onto. Now, the only way I knew how to get back was a super-long way that took us half-way to Mark�s house and back, so in hopes of cutting our time in half, I tried to take my first left to get back onto the road that brought us to the restaurant. I stared taking roads in hopes of finding familiarity but my quest was in vein. When Jennie and I realized that we could officially label ourselves �lost,� I said a prayer out-loud to the affect of, �Lord, please guide us safely out of this place and let us both get back home without harm.� I randomly took any road that might take me anywhere.

So, this lead us onto another main one-way street that I was unfamiliar with, so I decided to keep going with it to see if it ended up running into a road I knew, but suddenly the road was thrown into a weird roundabout. As I was trying to figure out what road to take, Jennie gasped and says, �Sam! Look out!� When I looked dead ahead of me, the road was forking, but I was going slow, so there was no fear of running into the barriers, but the problem is that here in Guatemala, in order to force a car to the left or right, they have these half-foot high curbs that run in the middle of the road. I was straddling the curb with my car.

Now, sitting here at the computer, I am able to think clearly and can look back on the situation, the logical and safe thing to do would have been to simply stop the car, put it into reverse, and choose a road to go on. I mean, there was hardly any traffic, so there would have been no problems, but since I was in the moment of quick thinking, I quickly reasoned with myself, �Well, I know my truck back at home can hop curbs with no problems, I�ll just hop this beast.� So I jerked the steering wheel hard to the left and hopped the curb. I learned very quickly that this Mitsubishi car I was driving was NOTHING like my truck. With a loud �POP!� sound coming from the bottom of the car I thought to myself, �Well, I have scrapped the bottom of this car many a time, so there are no worries.�

Getting further and further entangled into the mess of Guatemalan roads, Jennie and I spot a gas station and decide to seek refuge there hoping that someone will know where we need to go. As I was about to pull into the gas station, I see police lights light-up behind me and my heart sunk. �Why do they always pick on the gringos!?� I thought. When we pulled up behind another car at the pump, the police followed us in and I rolled down my window expecting to have a police officer greet me with a ticket for being white, but to my amazement, the police car turned off it�s lights and slowly passed us up. The car that was in front of us drove off, so with a sigh of relief we pulled into its old spot.

When the service man came to ask me how much gas I needed, I asked him where �Road to the Atlantic� was (that�s the road I live on here.) He obviously didn�t know where it was, but he told me to wait just a second as he walked up to a taxi driver that had just pulled in to fill up. The driver came to my car window and started to explain where it was but then something caught his gaze. As he abruptly stopped at what he was saying, his face squinted up and he took a step back from my car and looked at the ground where I had parked my car before pulling into my current position. As he did this, one of the gas station service men ran to the front of the car and bent over to take a look underneath. I was thinking to myself, �Oh great! I�ll bet half of the underside of my car is dragging on the ground from that stupid �curb-hop� I did!�

The guy in front of the car motioned with my hand to back the car up a little bit, and when I did a huge puddle of oil was unveiled. The �POP!� noise that we had heard was the oil pan cap being ripped off like it was an American trying to buy a pineapple. My heart sunk again when I suddenly realized that not only were we lost in a bad part of town in the dark with a broken-down car, but my cell phone had no minutes on it and Jennie didn�t have her cell phone on her. Obviously driving a car without oil is a bad thing (I learned that the hard way when I fried my old truck�s engine.) So they led me to pull into a parking space next to the gas station. Now at this point I am quite clueless as to what to do, but Jennie and I do the only thing we can do, PRAY.

After saying another prayer asking for God to somehow give this night to Him for His glory, Jennie and I get all the stuff out of the car that we can and lock all the doors and meet the gas station service men and the taxi driver outside. I asked if it was safe for me to leave my car here (not like I have a choice,) and of course they said �No.� So one of them said, �Hey, you can keep it behind our gate where we service other cars until tomorrow morning.� I thought that was a wonderful idea, but I wanted to make sure they weren�t taking advantage of the helpless gringos, so I asked him how much it would cost to leave it here overnight and he said something that I didn�t understand. When I asked him what it meant, he said, �Just 5 or 10Q is all.� That�s like $1.50! I didn�t hesitate to pull my car into the gate.

When we got out of the car to find out if we can call-up SOMEONE to come to our rescue, the taxi driver said that he would take us home for 40Q (about $5.50,) so we seized the opportunity. As soon as we opened the door to the taxi, there was a song playing, it was Jaci Velesquez (or however you spell it) that was right at the part that said, �For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son�� It was as if God was saying, �I am in control; look at what I have provided. Once you stared leaking oil and didn�t know it, I lead you to a specific location in the gas station with the police car to leave evidence of the oil leak. Then I allowed someone to notice the trail of oil you left. Next I softened the hearts of the service men to allow your car to be kept safe overnight for a mere $1.50. Then I provided safe transportation with this random taxi driver who I lead to this gas station at the exact time you needed it. Oh, and here is some good Christian music for you to listen to as you are taken home.�

God showed great power, mercy and love to us tonight. While the taxi driver was whisking us away to our destinations, Jennie and I prayed thanking God for all He had just done. Needless to say, the story isn�t quite over yet. I now have to get my car to the mechanic to repair the oil pan cap, or the whole oil pan all together. Not having any money to get a repair like this done I would like to ask if anyone reading this would like to donate some money to have the car fixed. I really don�t like asking for money, but since I am kind of �missionarying-it� right now, the only flow of cash is from people who God has graciously and generously sent.

I have more pictures, but I will put them up when it�s not almost 1AM.

Comments

Post A Comment