I don’t mind border crossings. They’ve been part of my life since childhood, and they’re usually uneventful.
I’m not a fan of being detained, however, which is what happened at the Montenegro border.
I knew we were in trouble when the border guard asked me my birthday. Three times. On the third time, my “are you stupid or just hassling me?” face flashed for just an instant. In my defense, I’d been dead-to-the-world asleep thirty seconds earlier. I knew he’d seen it from the look in his eyes.
“Which bag is yours?”
Hassling me. Crud. Not good.
I opened my backpack and hoped he wouldn’t notice the bright red nylon bag in the bottom. He did, and asked me to open it.
Really not good.
Inside the bag were a year’s worth of over the counter drugs and -here’s the kicker -my prescription medications, which I keep with me in my daypack on travel days. The medicines for my narcolepsy (otherwise known as the “keep me awake and not feel like I’m wading through peanut butter” pills) are a controlled substance. After six months of rationing my meds, skipping them on days I didn’t have to work, and my mother wrangling with insurance, they are literally irreplaceable. Given a choice between the meds and a gold bar, I pick the meds. Needless to say, on travel days they don’t leave my sight.
The minute he saw the pills, he picked up a bottle of my anti-malarial medicine and demanded to know what they were. I explained, and he barked, “There’s no malaria in Montenegro! Get off the bus!”
So I got off the bus and walked down to the second little doorway, and the officer instructed me to unpack my bag on some steps. Outside, the logistics coordinators were explaining our trip to the original officer. I struck out trying to speak French and Soanish, so I repeated the same routine every time one of the six officers came by to gawk at the pharmacy.
“We’ve been traveling through South America *indicate passport visas from South America and name the countries* and through Greece *point to visa*. I have medicine for a year *count the visas* and I have medicine for every day *point at prescriptions*”
The day before as I was walking to lunch, I felt the “come talk to me” tug in the back of my mind that God does sometimes. I thought it was weird, but went and sat down by the river in Skopje to pray.
I truly believe the Lord spoke to me: “The enemy is going to throw everything he has at you this month. I am stronger than he is. Don’t believe it.”
When they first pulled me in, I was worried. They might not detain me or incarcerate me, but they could confiscate my medicine with little to no recourse left to me. Two days without those meds, and life loses a bit of its lustre. I decided before I left that I would continue on even if for some reason I had to go without the meds, but the rest of the journey for my teammates and I would be radically different from the beginning.
I was worried for a hot second, but only one. I remembered the previous day, and I don’t think anyone was ever so un-flummoxed in detention as I was from that point forward. I stretched out on the steps, relaxed, and waited. I even waved and smiled at the guys as they passed by. I’m friendly like that. In a few minutes the commanding officer came over, handed me my passport, and said I could go. He shook his head, befuddlement on his face. “It’s a lot of medicine.”
Montenegro was a wonderful month, but had its challenges. I had to revisit spiritual battles I thought I’d won, fought them again, and won them again with God’s help.
I couldn’t blog much about the work we were doing because our host was concerned about ramifications for their church if we should accidentally portray an “us vs. them” attitude towards the religious orthodoxy in a country that monitors Internet traffic closely.
God knew what the month was going to hold, and he knew that I would be stopped at the border. He also knew the work He had for us to do, and saw me through to get me where I needed to be to do it. I’ll be sharing more about it soon!
