Let me set the scene to kick things off. My attempt to sleep that turned into a long “nap,” succeeding in only 4 hours of sleep. I get downstairs from my 20+ story hotel to explore the night with a walk about and find it raining so much so that my new rain coat can hardly keep up with shedding the water. Nonetheless, this is my first day in Asia and it’s going to be great! First impressions matter and I refuse to start with a bad taste in my mouth from a little lack of sleep and abundant rain. I walk around praying and singing, stirring up the sense of adventure and excitement in my heart. Little did I know how quickly that adventure would arrive at my doorstep.
My first meeting for the day kicked off at the real estate office to nail down an apartment where we arrived to quickly find out one of the ladies had forgotten her passport back at the hotel. My leader offered up the option to drive his yellow scooter back and grab her passport. My initial instinct was “Danger, Danger, Abort, Abort!” There are little to no traffic laws, pouring rain, man-eating storm hole covers, and I had never driven in Asia or a scooter before. Well, as with most things in my life I simply asked Holy Spirit and trusted what He said. Wait!? What? He said, “Go for it!” So, not wanting further potential to talk myself out of things, we left with keys in hand to head back for her passport and his scooter to get us somehow back to the the real estate office.
Back at the hotel, my friend headed up to her room so that she could quickly grab her passport and meet me down in five minutes so that we can hit the road. That meant I had just that amount of time to tame this yellow beast! I first unlocked the bent lock and climbed aboard. I put the key into the ignition and push myself back from the parking wall. I gave it some juice slowly and came out to make a left-hand turn onto a side street in order to practice a few laps back and forth. In my peripheral vision to my left approached my first moving object, and I began to give it too much juice, and simultaneously cried out, “Sorry! sorry! sorry!”(Like the poor man knew what I’m saying). My direct collision course towards him while trying to put my feet down, muscle enough traction to pick up the bike, only to finally bump him with my front tire. No harm done except to my pride and some laughter from on-lookers I back up and drive off casually. Play it off, Play it off…
Now, with the fresh shot of adrenaline from bumper bikes it is time to get down to some practice before the main “rodeo.” Keep in mind, all the while, it’s pouring rain and I have this huge tee pee like poncho canopying the scooter which hinders me from seeing the manual controls. In my mind what I’m preparing for is my first engagement with “Frogger” in real life. As a side note, my friend who is about to return is completely oblivious to all my internal world at this point as well as bumping into a scooter only a few minutes before. As she walked out the door and said she is ready to go she trusts her life into my oh so “honed” driving skills.
We took the short video right before launch which gives a taste of our little adventure. I definitely needed the gift of faith to make that first turn onto a congested, flooded, foreign road, but in the end, even through a one lane construction narrowing, which felt like the parting of the Red Sea, we arrived safely at our destination. Lesson learned: Trusting Him never fails even if our “driving” in life is not the greatest 🙂
This was the first of what I feel many unexpected adventures to come. As you can see your praying for safety on various levels is oh so needed and we hope not to give our angels too much of a workout 🙂