A Close One

This evening we DTS students went on something called an "outreach" to the city of Salem. Basically it was witnessing 101. We were given a questionnaire and our job was to go around and ask people the question. Stuff like, What do you see is prevalent social issues in this city? Do you think the church is responding to those issues? If you could ask God one question and get a reply, what would it be? The idea was that these questions would spark further conversations and lead somewhere deeper.

My little witnessing adventure didn't start as planned. As we were driving off base, we discovered that we had accidentally left a student, and crammed her into our already full car. Four of us in the back, two in front and no seat belts for anyone but the driver (they were there, but they didn't work or were impossible to find). I happened to be the person who had been squished off the back bench seat and was crunched up against the drivers seat.

Then, half way there, a cop pulled next to us (why do they appear when you just so happen to be pushing the law a little?). I ducked my head and my fellow back seaters quickly threw a blanket over me. We were a little tense, but the cop didn’t see the four people in the back…. right? Minutes later, when I poked my head out from under the blanket to breath I saw blue flashing lights shining all around. Yikes!

More bad news.
The driver of our car was a German girl with a German drivers license.
She was borrowing her friends car who was out of the country.
None of us knew if the car was insured or where the insurance papers were kept.

The good news.
The windows were foggy so it was really hard to see in.
The cop ended up being really nice.
The German girl, Julia, didn't even have to act traumatized to make the cop have pity on us--she was practically hysterical (although she kept it pretty well under control until the cop left).

Just before the cop walked up I threw the blanket off me and sat up. It's worse to hide from a cop and be found out than to fess up to your offence from the beginning. Not acting suspicious must have helped because he didn't even notice that four people were in the back. He looked at Julia's German drivers license and then apologized for pulling her over. He said when he ran the plates the car had been flagged. He didn’t know what the flag was all about and neither did we so after making sure that Julia was not actually Ann, (the owner of the car) he let us go, no seat belts and all.

At DTS, we've all been learning about the power of prayer. We've heard first hand accounts from people who smuggled Bibles into the old USSR and how miracles happened when they prayed their way through borders. I guess miracles happen on the road to Salem too. Praise God!

By the way
....we made sure there were only five people in the car on the way home, and we all wore our seat belts.