I woke up yesterday morning to an e-mail from the Pastor –
another answer to prayer. He told me that He could meet from 2-2:30, and then
he had a meeting he had to go to. I had also gone on the website for the team I
want to train with while here, and it said they had training at their stadium
from 3-4, so my plan was to walk to the train station, which had the only bike
rental with a “carte bancaire”, get a bike, bike to the Church by 2, meet with
the pastor, bike to the stadium, go to the session, speak with the coach, bike
back to the train station, walk back to the hotel. Once again, I was in for an
adventure (I’m starting to see a theme here…)
I ate my breakfast, did some work, and dressed warm because
it was snowing outside, and I would be spending most of the day outside. I got
my maps ready, but I had to leave a little late because none of them saved for
offline use. I took care of that (I thought), put my headphones on, and started
walking. Unfortunately, I realized about 10 minutes into my journey that the
directions were wrong, and I was lost. By now, it was about 1:20, and it was a
50 minute walk to the train station, with a 20 minute bike ride to the church. I was
going to be late. I kept walking for a bit, and eventually saw a lot of
buildings in the distance. Logically, I figured that that would be the center
of the city, and that that’s where you would put a train station, so I started
walking in that direction. A few minutes later, I was passing a paint store,
when two men got out of their car and started walking in. By now, I was begging
God to throw me a bone, but I had no idea how He would do it. Just then, their
car started rolling down the hill! So one of them chased it down, drove it back
up, made sure it would stay, and got out. I thought to myself ‘If there was
anyone I could ask for directions who wouldn’t make fun of me, it would be the
guy whose car just rolled down the hill.’ So I asked. He told me that I had
quite a long way to go, and then He offered to drive me there! They went in a
bought their supplies, and then he took me to the train station. He dropped me
off at around 1:40 – right on time. Praise God!
I found the bike rental rack relatively quickly, and got to
work on getting one. Again, there was a problem: apparently, “carte bancaire”
or “bank card” does not mean a debit card, it means a credit card. So,
unfortunately, my card was not accepted, and I could have no bike. (While I was
getting rejected by the bike rental machine, I glanced absentmindedly to my
right and saw a bus. The bus’ destination was the stadium! At least I knew how
I would get to the training session!) By now, it was around 1:55, and I had no
bike, and only 10€ on me. The walk to the church would take about 30
minutes, and a ride from a taxi would cost me about 20€. I needed to withdraw some
money. I asked a taxi driver where the nearest bank was, he told me, and I headed
in that direction. About 15 minutes later, I arrived, made my withdrawal, and headed
back to the train station to take a taxi. I asked the driver to take me to the
church, but since I had not planned on taking a taxi I did not have the address
on me, and he was not familiar with the specific one I was speaking of. So, it’s
2:25, the taxi ride would’ve taken about 10 minutes anyways, and by the time I
got there he would have been in his meeting. None of this mattered anyway
though because the taxi driver couldn’t help me without an address. So I went
to plan B.
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| The Field! |
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| The Stands! |
I took the bus to the stadium, watched the session, spoke to
the coach, and then headed back to the train station. I didn’t have anyway to
contact the pastor without wifi, so I was just going to email him when I got
back to my hotel. I started walking back, and I thought I recognized a section
of the sidewalk from the night before that was sectioned off for construction.
Could I be near the church? If so, I might as well stop by to see if the pastor
was still there! I decided if I saw one more familiar thing that I was going to
try and find the church. I kept walking, and pretty soon I passed a garage that
I definitely recognized from last night. I turned around, and turned on the
street that was my best guess for where the church was (the whole area looked a
lot different during the day). Unfortunately, nothing I saw on that road looked
familiar. I was about to turn around when out of the corner of my eye I saw a
man jump out of his car and run into his house as if he had forgotten something,
and then reemerge with a bag seconds later. It was the man from the night
before! Which meant…the church was right around the corner! The chances of that
happening – of me turning the corner at exactly that moment, of him forgetting
his bag at exactly that moment, of me practically (although completely
accidentally) breaking into his house the night before – slim to none. Actually
I would put that at 0.
I went up to the church, and this time the front gate was
open. I walked in, and there directly to my right, was the pastor working in
his office. I walked in, he recognized me, and I asked him if he was free – he was
leaving in 10 MINUTES. I literally caught him just in time. We set up a meeting
for today, and he also invited me to the Young Adult Group they have on Friday
nights.
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| Saw this on the way back...never knew I was into painting but I'll take it! |
So far, the past few days have been reminiscent of The
Amazing Race. I have an overall objective, I have a plan, I follow my plan, but
I run into problems, which turn into perfect coincidences, which lead me to
completing my objective in a better way than I would have thought.
The journey continues…
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