For those of you who don’t know in 2008, I joined a house of prayer in Washington DC. We lived on the southeast side of town.
If you don’t know the DC metro area, the people that do are all picking up their chins off the floor right now. I took Chuck by there last week just to show him our old stomping grounds.
One time we got pulled over by the cops (3 cops and the air-raid siren) and this is how the conversation went…
Policeman 1 (there were 3) : Do you know why you got pulled over?
Policeman 3: (putting some type of paraphernalia sensing device on our trunk)
House of Prayer teammate: Because we are white.
Luckilly, the policemen thought his joke was funny, and they let us go telling us that the only people who hung out in our neighborhood at that time of night were either buying drugs or praying. Thankfully, they believed we were the latter.
Stories you should never tell your mom. 🙂
Before you draw the wrong conclusion, let me tell you that I love every ethnicity and am thankful that we are not all the same boring coat of paint. I always knew deep down that i’d marry someone from another nation, I just didn’t think it’d be a white Canadian, who once brought a fleece blanket to a lake day. Don’t be surprised if one day you get a Christmas card from us and it looks like we bought a round-the-world ticket and came back with a live souvenir from every nation.
I love diversity, but my point is, we were the minority in our neighborhood. Hood being the key word there.
So one day, my cars blinker started acting crazy. And for some reason, I remembered that our Rastafarian neighbor named Buck had told me that he fixed cars. Sometime after I had dramatically fallen on my bunk-bed mumbling my need for a husband to my roommate, I sought Buck out for some car help. *Note: at this point we were praying from 1-5am, and may I suggest that morning vitamin D is perhaps important to mental health.
I found Buck, which is really no big feat at all. Buck could generally be found draped over a boat in his driveway, that never left the driveway. He was always pretty relaxed if you will, and generally there was some Reggae.
Buck told me that he only did body repair work but that his nephew could fix my blinker. I politely declined that offer. Back to my bunk I went. Not long after a teammate came up a little concerned, “umm, there’s a guy at the door for you.” Great, Buck’s nephew makes house calls.
I found Bucks nephew to be strangely many years older than Buck, but didn’t ask any questions.
He told me where to buy the part, and that he would fix it for half of what the dealership wanted to charge. I guess I’ll state the obvious here, I do love a good deal.
So, he fixed the blinker. My friend Colleen and I drove to the ATM to get cash to pay him. The blinker worked great, only one problem… Every time I turned right, the horn honked!
Colleen who happens to be a blonde Canadian and I got a lot of looks as we accidentally honked at many pedestrians in our neighborhood.
I told my new mechanic to which he responded, “those Pontiacs, once they get past a certain number of miles…”
Now, I am no push-over, and am up for confrontation now and then, but I choose to just nod and pretend it was the Pontiac and not the mechanic.
Thanks Buck’s nephew. You saved me $300. Too bad the horn just went out after you worked on it.
I called my dad, and he told me everything was going to be okay. He said your car is not going to blow up. He encouraged me to go to Starbucks and get a Frappuccino, and try to relax. Now that’s wisdom right there folks.
He was right. It was okay. I was okay, and I was going to be okay.
I’ve learned through the years to use a little more judgement in choosing a mechanic. Or maybe there just aren’t any Rastafarians in my current hood?
I am also learning that it is okay. I am okay. It is going to be okay.
While a trustworthy mechanic may be hard to find, we don’t have to look far to find One who we can truly trust.
Trust in the Lord with all your heart
and lean not on your own understanding;
in all your ways submit to him,
and he will make your paths straight.
Proverbs 3:5-6
