Have you ever prayed, “God, teach me to have more patience.” Be careful with that one. He shows up and does it! I learned that the hard way. I’m not accusing anyone…but I have a feeling that someone prayed that prayer yesterday and we all suffered for it. Yesterday on our way to the school to teach, our driver runs out of gas. He was able to pull off of the road and luckily we were relatively close to a gas station so he just grabbed the gas container out of the back and ran to the gas station. No sweat…we made it to the school safe and sound. 6 hours later on our journey home…we run out again! This time, there was nowhere for him to pull off. We were stuck in the middle of the road. They drive a little different here in Africa than we do back home…so we all got out removed ourselves a safe distance from the vehicle. Our driver had to catch a taxi this time to get to a gas station. All of us are thinking…I’ve never run out of gas twice in one day. Patience…we can do it! We had a few guys stop to keep us company while we waited. He returned and shortly after we were on our way again. About 6 minutes later…we’re out again! How does that happen?! I’m not gonna lie to you and say that our attitudes were still chipper at this point. The good news is we were at least out of harm’s way and off the road this time. Our driver once again caught a taxi with the gas container in hand and headed off to get more gas. A couple kids came by and Jordan played catch with them using a poisonous tomato. We made a video of our ridiculous circumstances. We tried to make the best of the situation. He returned once again and
filled us up! After the 3rd time to fill up…we made it home!
Success! The drive that usually takes us about 30 minutes
had been stretched to about an hour and a half. Talk about learning patience…I had to go to the bathroom the whole time! I know it’s ok to squat on the side of the road in Africa, I just try to avoid it if I can. To be honest, ‘pay attention to your gas gauge’ is the main lesson learned here. I haven’t figured out a deeper meaning to the situation other than God was teaching us all patience. Really, I just wanted to give you a story to make you laugh.
