LOst

One year I took a group of Senior High kids to Washington DC for our summer mission trip. I remember the projects and the people fondly but driving in the city was a nightmare. In most cities, one way streets alternate but not in DC. They have no rhyme or reason. I discovered after looking at a map that the city is designed like a wagon wheel and wish I had looked at it before I left. Another thing that happens in DC is that the parking spaces along the sides of the roads change over to lanes of traffic after 4 pm. If you have a car (or a church van) parked in one of these places then you get a two hundred and sixty dollar fine. How do I know this? Because I got a ticket for this amount.

It was our last day in the city and we had gone to one of the museums. I had counted all the kids in my van in the museum to make sure that we had everybody then we left. But in order to exit the building, we had to pass through the gift shop. I really didn’t think anything about it until we were standing next to the van and I was missing a kid. She had apparently gotten distracted in the gift shop and stopped following me to the van. I unlocked the vehicle and told the other kids to load up and I went back to the museum to find the missing student. I left the keys with an eighteen year old student so they could roll down windows. Like I said, these were Senior High students and most of them were between sixteen and eighteen years old. So they knew how to drive. Apparently, it was right before 4 pm and the police arrived and tell the boy with the keys that he has to move it because traffic was about to use this lane. The students in the van knew that if I came out and the van was gone that I would blow my top. They also had watched me struggle with trying to not get lost in the maze of the city all week and I think that they thought if they moved the van that they would get lost. Whatever the reason, they were more afraid of me than the policeman. So they were given a ticket for two hundred and sixty dollars.

When I arrived back five minutes later at the van with the missing girl, they handed me the citation and I blew my top anyway. I asked, “Why didn’t you just drive the van around the block?” and they said “Because we know that no one under twenty five is allowed to drive the van.” I was stumped and exhausted and so I cried. Then I loaded up and drove away. As I have been reflecting on the scripture for this week, I think that the Hebrew people must have felt this way being lost in the wilderness. They thought that they knew how to go, but the way was treacherous. They wondered what they had done wrong to deserve this punishment. They were weary of the journey and maybe even cried on occasion. As we continue our Road Trip theme, we will encounter the creative way that the Hebrew people followed God on their confusing trip with navigation and other issues.

Just so you know, the other van also got a ticket for blocking the lane at 4 pm. So when I returned to Faith, I wrote a long letter about how we had been serving and working in the city as missionaries and mailed it in with a copy of my tickets. I told them that I did not have that kind of money but I would raise it if necessary. I received a response a couple of weeks later thanking us for our work in the city and forgiving the tickets.

Sunday we will consider the text from Exodus and the way that God led them in the wilderness. Our children will be singing at the 11:00 am service. I hope you can find your way to join us.

I love you and God loves you,