Impatience and other things

There I was, alone in the church van after dark, parked in line at a sobriety checkpoint, laughing out loud…

Maybe I should start at the beginning.

Bev and I were going to Palomas Mexico for the weekend. It was a mission trip. We have been doing this for a while, the group goes every month and we go as often as we can, which for the summer has been every month. There is work to be done and kids to be loved, and programs to encourage education. There are churches and Christians to be supported and the gospel to be shown to people who will never believe it until they see it.

Due to the number of people going and logistics entered into when part of the group is taking the girls from the orphanage to the coast, and the rest needed a vehicle to take them home, we needed to bring our church van.

Snag: The week before our weekend in Mexico (always the second weekend of the month) the youth group was going to camp. They would have the van. We leave on Friday evening. The van would not be available until Saturday afternoon. …Bummer.

Then, a brilliant plan. Bev would go with the rest of the group of Friday. I would bring up the van on Saturday. This plan came with the added bonus of me getting to play music loud and sing as I went, also, I would be crossing an international border before the wee hours of the morning.  I don’t know why it bothers me, maybe it’s that I know any number of things can go wrong there, and I would rather things go wrong at times when I’m usually awake.

However, the group who went to Mexico on Friday neglected to bring a couple of items. I get a phone call, “could you call these two people and arrange to collect these items on your way through Santa Fe.” It was a small thing, of course and none of it would delay me that much. But as I saw my early arrival at the border began to slip away, I was dismayed.

Actually I lost my patience. I fussed about the unfairness of it all. I didn’t want to make the phone calls and I certainly didn’t want to pick up items. Santa Fe was supposed to be a minor hurdle on my way to my real goal, not a stopover complete with errands (note the plural). Please note, this is not my normal mode of operation. I was having a bad day. I was feeling sore and tired.

Despite all, I did what I was supposed to do. I steeled myself up and made a couple of phone calls. Neither of the people I called answered. I had done my best. I gave myself a reprieve until lunchtime.

I should have known better.

One of the two called me back within half an hour. We arranged the time and I got directions to a place where we could meet (not far off my normal route, as it turned out). A few minutes later there was another phone call. I thought it might be the other person, so I could finish with the distracting business of arranging to impede my own progress. I picked up the phone.

I thought wrong. It wasn’t him.

It seemed there were a number of members of a Zulu tribe in Los Alamos, and they needed a ride to Santa Fe. The person calling asked, very politely, whether I could delay my departure for an hour or so while someone took these Zulu tribe people to Santa Fe and then brought the van back. I would be a hero to a whole Zulu tribe. Please and thank you.

How could I say no?

I wanted to fuss some more, to rant and rave about unfairness and conspiratorial universes. I did… but…

A Zulu tribe?

God knows I have a sense of humor. Read that sentence again, you probably read it wrong. GOD KNOWS I have a sense of humor. As I began to realize my progress had been brought to a standstill by a Zulu tribe. (Who I’m sure are very fine people, but I did not get to meet them.) I was overwhelmed by the irony of it all. I realized I was being stupid. Yes, I would rather cross the border at an earlier time, but it was not worth the value I had given to it.

And it’s nice to know that God cares enough about me to not let me get away with being impatient. Especially when I don’t have a good reason.

So, after what was for all purposes a short delay I was able to take the van, fill it up and go to Santa Fe to do my errands. The trip was mostly uneventful; I drove, I played music, I sang. There was a heavy rainstorm which slowed everything down for about five minutes.

And, about forty miles from the border, there was a sobriety checkpoint. It was dark. I had been driving a few hours. I was tired, and maybe a little punchy. I couldn’t help but wonder what a sobriety checkpoint has in common with a Zulu tribe.

Luckily I managed to stop laughing before I reached the place where the officer was waiting. He might not have understood.

The moral of the story is; If you’re  being  impatient, God will send a Zulu tribe to stop you.