officer who tried to pull me over this morning. Let me recap the morning's events. Well, yesterday started another busy weekend of having Evelia and crew (Carlos, Perla, and Nelson) with us...it is sort of becoming a weekend tradition, which is fine by me because I love the kids and enjoy spending time with them. (Evelia is the woman whose husband left them about two months ago now). So, today we left for church a bit late and I decided to give all of them and Darlene a ride since Darlene's car is still in the shop and making it across town with kids, backpacks, and a week's worth of food items is no easy task! All was going just fine until we exited the toll road where you go onto a main road. Off of that main road, you must turn left onto another main road. This exact location of making a left turm always scares me because the cars behind you come really fast and it always appears as if they are not going to stop in time and they will rear-end you. Well, wouldn't you know this morning the car behind me appeared to not be stopping fast enough. Then I noticed the car behind him also was not stopping. I inched forward to avoid them hitting me, but as I did I heard the all-to-familiar sound of squeeling brakes as they slid into each other. Nobody hit me. Well, the catcher is that the car that was directly behind me which almost hit was a police car! This fat annoying police man (note any annoyance in my tone!!!) got out of his car and proceeded to tell me that I was the one at fault! Yes believe it or not, I was, according to him, at fault for causing the other car to rear-end him. Wow! His exact words were "Senora, mira lo que provocaste!" or "Look what you provoked, lady!" I told him that I was simply turning left from the left-most lane and that neither he nor the other driver were paying attention to stop fast enough to avoid hitting each other and nearly hitting me. He was fussing and fuming for a good ten minutes and tried to tell me there were no turns allowed there, that I needed to proceed to the following stop light to turn and then do a U-turn to get back to the other turn, or that the road had double yellow lines showing there were no turns allowed. When I told him to look at the road and show me the lines he walked away in a fit of rage and gave up his lost cause. Clearly the road had absolutely NO lines painted on, no signs saying not to turn, and the truth is, where I turned is a place where people turn all the time. This cop simply wanted a bribe or something or felt like exploding because he got rear-ended. Well, that was the beginning of my day today. I do have to say, in a note of pride, that Evelia, the mexican riding with me, said "I was going to say something but you were doing a great job at defending yourself and arguing with that police man." Darlene said, "that's not because you're gringo, that's just because you're Bethany!" For anyone who knows me well, you know that I do not like to let an unjustice in public go unnoticed..whether its the main at the market charging me 12 pesos too much for my fruit (that happened Thursday), or the car-wash people not vacumming underneath my carpets (a few weeks back) or the airport man in Cancun charging me $70 which I didn't have to pay, I do not take kindly to people trying to pull a swift one or cheat me in public. I am glad I passed the Mexican's test of being able to defend myself in SPanish before a police man.
The rest of the day continued...in typical mexican style. We had church, a little time of fellowship, and then to McD's with Evelia and family and Eleazar and Suzi (their first sunday back...they are the mexican pastor and his new german wife, she was a missionary here as a single before). I say typical mexican style because when we went to finally leave McD's after four hours of being there, we managed to say goodbye at least three times before actually departing. Here, its very typical to make your rounds hugging and kissing everyone goodbye, then to start talking again, fifteen minutes later to hug and kiss goodbye again, and this continues for sometimes an hour before you actually make your final hug and kiss goodbye.
We dropped off Evelia and kids and Carlos asked if he could have a mini-driving lesson so I gave him a a quick tutorial on the stick shift and let him drive around the block. He'll be 13 this year. He did amazingly well, and didn't stall even once after leaving the parking lot. He even switched to second gear. He was really proud of his driving ability and I told him someday he'll make an excellent choffeur. Evelia was sharing many ministry plans for that area (over 5000 new homes built there in the past few years). Pray that we can reach Huehuetoca in the coming year. There are no churches within the residencial area, and it is farther removed from the city making it difficult to get to other churches. She is excited to start a ministry, but also be praying for her family and its stability as well. They need a lot of prayer right now.
Also remember my own family in prayer, especially my brothers as they both have a lot going on right now. Ben and his wife Shelley and Aaron is in his last semester of college.
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