Always Learning

Even after living here for a year and a half, I find life amusing and sometimes surprising.

The week before Christmas, I was invited to sing at an outreach service held at a local Vietnamese church. The service was in English, and many university students were invited.

In the afternoon before the service, we were invited to a “party” at the church. Tony was preparing to preach the next day, so I took the girls and, thankfully, Quyen. The “party” turned out to be a Vietnamese service with food at the end. There were songs, prayers and a message. The event was held at Bee’s church and she had taken off the day at our house so she could cook at the church. It was late afternoon, so all the girls fell asleep during the service.

After we ate, I called a taxi to go home. In a few minutes, a taxi pulled up out front, honking for us. Clearly, the driver wanted us to hurry. He stood outside the taxi, motioning for us to move quickly across the dirt driveway. Just as we got in the taxi, Faith noticed that she had left a small stuffed animal inside the building. So, we had to stop the driver so she could run back in and get it. He was noticeably unhappy about it.

Just as she was coming back, another taxi pulled into the church area. He, too, began honking—but not at us. He was pointing at our driver, who promptly got out, opened our doors and motioned for us to get into the second taxi.

I was perplexed until Quyen explained. When we called for the taxi, the “main office” dispatched a car. Many taxi drivers heard the dispatch. One of them was close and he came first, unbeknownst to the dispatcher. Some of the drivers here steal fares. If they can beat the dispatched taxi to the fare, and get away before the driver who was sent arrives, no one knows who took the fare, and the driver pockets the all the money. But, as in our case, if the dispatched taxi sees who is picking up the fare, he reports it to the main office and the offending driver is caught (and most likely fined). No wonder the first driver was in such a hurry! I had to laugh…I’m sure he never dreamed that he would be trying to herd 7 girls (4 of them under age 10) into his “getaway car.”

I wonder in the months we have lived here how many drivers have been sent to us and been disappointed that we had been “stolen” when they arrived? Hmmmm…that might explain why they are sometimes slow to come. J

The moral of the story: Don’t try to cut in line to get ahead. You never know when the Lord will use a 7-year-old to expose your deeds!

Grace and peace!