If God is for us...

Our weekly 7am prayer meeting was quiet this morning, in a way. Peggy is not feeling well today, Steve has been kept away with busyness due to important consultants coming to the new hospital, and Dagmar is away for a few days. Thus, we were left with only Becky and us short-termers: Tom, Tim, Jerry, Marcela and myself. This made it great fun, but a little slow-moving!

The meeting closed at 9:30am, and so (in order to be at the hospital, some 15 minutes'drive away, by 10) I dashed upstairs and wolfed down my bread roll and antimalarial prophylactics, took the car keys from Becky with thanks, grabbed my lesson stuff, and jumped into the Land Rover.

The quickest route to the hospital involves turning left out of the end of the track on which you find my dwelling, but as I have agreed to pick up one of my students every morning to give her a lift (as a nurse, she only comes in for the English lessons -- still no patients at the hospital until the kitchen can be built), I turn right to take the longer way around town.

Due to the frequent lack of power, there are no traffic lights in Lubango. Instead, in one or two places, the police perform what I can only describe as an elaborate dance (complete with white gloves) to direct traffic in busier periods. Today, as I reached that point in the crossroads, the podium was empty, but I eventually found a gap in the traffic and made the turn.

Having turned into the road, my foot left the accelerator pedal when I noticed an orange-jacket-clad police sergeant signalling for me to stop and pull into the side of the road. Before you wonder if I was driving like a lunatic, this is a regular occurrence, although my first. It was as I pulled in that I said to myself, "Fiddlesticks!" (or words to that effect) ... in my haste to leave, I had left my licence at home.

Having explained this to the policeman, who was not best pleased (it is a legal requirement to carry one's carta de condução), he asked to see the vehicle's registration documents. After much furtive searching, I found the bits and pieces and handed them over. We to'd and fro'd a little and he asked me to go back home, get my licence and bring it back to him. I praise God that my Portuguese has come on so much in the last couple of weeks.

And so I did. As I trundled back to the roundabout, I was impressed by God's timing, as I somehow ended up behind the only car I have seen in my two months here which has a Bible verse car sticker, especially one directly at eye-level for a Land Rover driver. The sticker spoke to my heart: "Se Deus é por nós, quem será contra nós?" ... "If God is for us, who could be against us?"

By and by, I was back with the sergeant, who was not the jolliest individual I had met all morning. Eventually satisfied with my driving licence, he looked at me authoritatively: "now your passport please." I do not carry my passport whilst driving, in fact one does not need to (so I am advised by the mission), and mine is at the immigration office at present anyhow. Oh dear. Most disappointed that I was again unable to satisfy his demands, the policeman asked me where I was headed. "The new hospital," I said, in my best Portuguese.

Suddenly, everything changed. "Doctor Estévão?" (the name by which everyone in this city knows Steve) Not wishing to confuse the issue with a complicated explanation of how I am teaching English in a hospital, I simply said that I work with Doctor Estévão. The officer was most interested. "Ah, my wife would like a consultation." In that moment, we changed from officer and woefully unco-operative driver to best of buddies. We swapped names, I promised to speak to Steve on his behalf, and I was on my way, thanking God profusely.

I won't mention the fact that the student I was to pick up was absent, and so I needn't have passed the checkpoint anyway.

Despite my late (delayed further by being stuck behind a slow-moving Toyota all the way) arrival at the hospital, my lessons went well. It wasn't until some point later, as I was leaving the hospital, that I realised... my driving licence had been given back, but not the vehicle's documents. The police at the checkpoint had changed, and my sergeant was nowhere to be seen.

Tail between legs, I went back to Becky and explained the situation. As the car is virtually undrivable without its documents, we walked along to the checkpoint and talked to the policeman there. They are very polite, and always salute you at the start of any encounter. Some 15 minutes, a lot of conversing and giving of information (I was very pleased to know the sergeant's name!) on my part, and a complicated-looking form later, I was asked to sign. "Attenda uma segunda," (wait a second) said Becky wisely as she noticed a small section virtually buried beneath flowery writing which was for something that can roughly be translated as infringements of the law.

The officer explained to us that the form would be invalid without something written in this section, and so he had written an article/paragraph reference that stated (according to him) the vehicle documents were tatty and thus had to be confiscated. At our protestations, he assured us that we would not have to pay anything, should face no penalties, and it was not our fault. I went ahead and signed, in faith. Becky can present this paper in the interim should she be stopped by the police, in lieu of documents.

Well, that was an experience to add to my growing arsenal. As faithful prayer warriors, I would be grateful if you could join me in thanking God for his faithfulness and provision, and you would pray with us that we will be able to get hold of the vehicle documents again, without any impediment or bribe. Watch this space for more news...