Prisoners and Thug Kids

Recently, we had a nine active prisoners visit our church. It was kind of a scary thing. Yes our church agreed to it, yes it was my husband, Z, that was behind the whole thing, but scary for a 20 something year old girl. Z knew all the prisoners that were coming, so I comforted myself with that knowledge. I went to church a little nervous and little hesitant about the whole situation. So when I was at church I prayed that God would protect us all today. Everything was fine at church. The guys were really nice and normal even.

Later that day Z was in town and wanted to know if I would meet him downtown so we could go on a walk. It was one of the first gorgeous days of spring. So I was riding my bike downtown. I came to a crosswalk where I needed to wait for the light to change so I could cross. I stopped a distance from it because there was a group of four teenager boys that kind of looked tough. As I stopped one of them approached me and asked me something. That alone was kind of weird. Usually strangers don't talk to me here. What I thought he said was, "McDonalds." I figured he meant where's McDonalds. So I answered him. Then something weird happened. The four guys surrounded me. It was totally awkward and I really didn't know what was going on. I wanted to be friendly, but I'm not so good at small talk in German. But I noticed that the traffic light had changed, so I said excuse me and was on my way. As I rode away they started to laugh. I figured they were laughing at my German. I must have said something ridiculous or maybe just my accent. Then I noticed an angry Z across the busy road. He had seen the whole thing and asked what they said to me. Totally naive I told them they wanted to know where McDonalds was, but they laughed at me, so now I just don't know what they wanted. And the more I thought about it the less likely it was that what they wanted to know where McDonald's was.

Apparently as I rode away one of them had pretended to smack my butt and little did they know that my husband had watched them do that. Part of me thinks it would have been awesome to see those kids face if they really would have smacked my butt. Can you imagine what those kids would have done when a big muscular angry husband came to kick their butts??? That would have been AMAZING! Like a movie or something. But lets focus on God. He is always looking out for me. I don't know why when those kids circled me and I was able to get away so easily. I don't know why they didn't take my purse and bike. But thought back to that morning where I was surrounded by scary prisoners and asked God to protect us. He did, and He never stopped. It's strange to me that I was doing something so ordinary, something I do daily and wasn't thinking I needed God to protect me at that moment, but He did it anyways. He even had a back up plan in case I was too dumb to ride away.

Another and hopefully my last airport story

As I was traveling back from Germany to America after my first six months here I was so excited after a long trip to see America again. I was so excited to go back and be able to order pizza without any struggles or unwanted extra attention. So my husband and I got off the plane with our custom forms filled out and standing in line with all the other Americans! I was thrilled! Like kiss the floor excited! All smiles! My husband was not so happy. He had a cold and when you fly with a cold it's a miserable experience. His ears where all clogged up so every time he would say anything he would yell it.

This was my very first experience with going through customs. (When you enter Europe you barely notice that you went through it.) So we went up to the desk with out filled out form and handed it to a very stern woman. She said, "You didn't put a date." I said, "Oh sorry, what is the date? She replied, "15 March" By the way she said it you would have thought I just asked if it was ok if I brought a 10 oz bag of Marijuana with me. So I went to write the date. When I was in Germany I had learned to write the day first and then the month, but now that I was in the USA I reminded myself to write the month first then the day. The customs lady was pissed about that. She gave me a look that was meant to put the fear of the United States government in me. It did. She told me as if it were of the utmost importance and I had broken a major law, "I told you the day first then the month." Uuuhhhh...ok sorry lady. Luckily she let us in despite the horrible thing I had done.

We went to claim our baggage so we could put it right back onto another baggage claim belt. (I don't get the point of that.) As we were walking I was still totally excited and my husband looked like a zombie, the security stopped him to ask him a few questions about what he was bringing into the country. He could barely hear anything. They'd ask a question and he'd yell his response back to them. I told my unaware husband that he was yelling his answers and the security guys just glared at me. Oops, controlling wife, not a good look for me.

We got rid of our bags and went through the medal detectors. I flew through them, since I had practical slip on shoes and no belt, while my husband had on a belt, a watch, quadruple knotted tennis shoes. Every time we went through security I was always way faster and I guess in a hurry to get to the next place. So finally he was getting sick of it! I was getting ready to bolt to to find some of that amazing American food that I missed and he's trying to put his belt on, and he yells at me, "Why are you always running away from me when my pants are falling down?" He had no idea that he had yelled till he noticed curious eyes staring at him.

Ok just so my he doesn't feel so alone, what's something you've blurted out and wish you could take back?