“What was
that?” Jess asked me, slight concern in her voice. “I’m pretty sure it was the
tire” I replied as I pulled to the side of the two lane highway. Yep, we
stepped out of the car to see that the tire on Pastor Gift’s SUV was completely
flat. “Have you ever done this before?” “Never changed one by myself but I’ve
seen it done more than a few times.” Then the jack wouldn’t work, apparently it
was a hydraulic jack and had to have a little screw at the bottom turned so
that there would be pressure for it work, but neither Jessica and I, nor a
random guy passing by we asked to help us, knew this. Great what to do next? We
had no cell phone with us, typical as we only have two between the five of us.
A woman and a man ended up stopping by to help us. The guy tried to use his
jack but it wasn’t big enough as he was in a tiny car and we were in an SUV. He
sent his girlfriend down to the next garage to get a bigger jack and in the
meantime he got ours to work but it only lifted the car part of the way. When
she brought back a bigger jack, we finally got the tire changed and continued
on our way.
A little
ways down the road, I kept seeing cars flashing their lights at me…couldn’t
mean the same thing in Swazi as it does in the states could it? I thought about
it and reduced my speed some but completely missed a sign I knew was there that
the speed limit reduced down to 60 km from 80 km. Apparently I was going 85.
(60 km = 37mph, 80 km = 49mph, 85 km =
52mph) The policeman came up to our vehicle and told me “we were conducting a
speed trap, and you were caught speeding. Please come pay your fine.” Although I was
slightly refreshed by his honesty, I’ve never had a speeding ticket before and
wasn’t thrilled that my first came in a foreign country doing mission work. I
paid the E60 fine (about $8.5) and Jess and I continued on our way to the store
to get our groceries for the boys living near the center and for a few other
homesteads that Jess was buying food for because they had almost nothing left.
On our way
back we dropped off some
of the food at one of the homesteads. One of the little boys came running up to
us to help carry the mealy-meal (crushed maize), beans and other food to the
house and showed us his room where they all sleep. Its beginning to get cold at
night here and winter is approaching, he explained to us as best he could that
the house has holes in it and he is getting pretty cold at night. I thought of
the blankets that the ambassador team left and vowed to bring him one in my
mind. One of the younger little boys had a herniated navel, a big pot belly,
and nothing on his lower half; he just continued to stare at me as I tried to
greet him. I heard whimpering from corner near the house, there was a little
puppy, maybe three weeks old trying to crawl into a mat to get out of the wind.
The puppy was the final straw and I began to have to bite back tears. Despite
the despair I saw and felt the family was celebrating that they had food and
wanted to take pictures with us as Jess was the one who paid for their food.
Sometimes I
ask myself a question I know I’ll get when I get back home. Was it worth it?
Was it worth the time away from people that I love? That day, was it worth it
to change a flat tire, get a speeding ticket, use my own money to buy some food
for people? You bet.
I remember
reading The Shack by William Young recently and in it Jesus/God is asked was it
worth it? Oh yes, he fiercely whispers, it was worth every second.
