By CBF field personnel Kirk
I had my plan. Pack the night before. Load the car at 6. Begin the 10-hour drive north at 11.
The plan worked—for a few hours. At 2:30, cruising in the fast lane and beating Google Maps’ ETA, I felt the car lurch like it had been slammed by a giant’s fist.
Terror. Prayer. Limped to the shoulder—thankful not to be rear-ended.
A Mitsubishi dealer, closing early for a national holiday, found a transmission leak. Refill the fluid every 90 minutes and get to the service center four hours north. By the next morning, it was every 15 minutes. No way I’d make it over the mountains.
I needed a tow truck. In 38 years in Southeast Asia, I had never learned the local word for one. I spent the morning requesting “a vehicle that can carry other vehicles as freight”—first at a highway department office (home, oddly, to an ostrich), then at a police checkpoint, where the man at the desk turned out to be a veterinarian.
A police officer finally taught me the word—half of it borrowed from English. I asked if he had a number for one. At that very second, a tow truck pulled into the checkpoint!
The officer darted into the road, waving his arms—something you never want to see here. “Where are you going?” he asked the nervous driver. “North.” “Take this foreigner and his car with you.”
By 7 a.m. we were on our way—me, our SUV, and a 28-year-old driver named Dice. He was going to fetch a Ferrari whose owner wouldn’t drive it on highways. Ferrari service for a missionary Mitsubishi!
I told Dice our meeting was a miracle—I’d been praying to Jesus as he pulled up. Then Dice told me Jesus had done a miracle for him too.
Born Buddhist, he now called himself “no religion”—half Buddhist, half Christian. Years earlier, riding a motorcycle without a helmet or license, he had crashed into a Mercedes-Benz. The enraged owner demanded a year’s wages—or jail. Desperate, Dice went to church with Christian coworkers. Not understanding the mass, he simply prayed: “Jesus, if you are real, help me with this burden.”
On Tuesday, the police called. “The rich guy feels sorry for you. His insurance will cover everything. You’re free to go.”
For hours we talked—his girlfriend, his paralyzed mother, his Batman tattoo, the latest Spiderman movie. He played “Wonderwall” by Oasis, a song about someone who might save you. What does it mean to be saved? Gospel connections were everywhere.
Dice worried about spirits, choosing hotels where guests hadn’t reported any. I told him about Christians I know who have commanded spirits to leave in Jesus’ name, as Jesus himself did. If he ever met one, he could call on Jesus too.
At the service center, I thanked Dice and gave him a Christian booklet in his language.
“I believe. I really believe,” he said as we parted.
What a 24 hours! Not at all what I’d expected—but Jesus always knows better.