I must share a little excitement before it's forgotten and never shared. While on my way to school near 9AM Thursday morning, on my way to school to teach in chapel, I had an accident. Turning right to go up the hill to the school, a motor cycle ran into me. Of course, I was going very slowly while turning the corner so it wasn't a great impact, it was more or less that he bumped into the van. As the taxi driver looked at me he pointed to his cheek then moved his bike away to the side of the road. I sat for a moment considering what I would do. Get out, get away??? What?? There was also a man talking rapidly at me, so thinking he was telling me to get out of the car, I did. By now there was a crowd.
The driver stood quietly, not saying much but kept putting his finger on his cheek meaning he was injured there. The other man who was doing a lot of talking, finally made me understand that he was saying, "It's not your fault." Whew! Someone saw it and said it wasn't my fault. He then told me to go on to school, that he and the taxi driver would come up. (He was really protecting me because the crowd was getting larger and in a crowd there can be big problems such as one in the crowd getting angry then you have a mob scene).
I went on up to school, parked, and by the time I got out of the car, they were there. Waiting for Petit Homme to translate for me, I put my fingers on the side of the taxi drivers face and told him how sorry I was that all this happened. With a translator, I asked him what he wanted me to do. He said he could not work the rest of the day that he was in too much pain, so he needed to pay the motor cycle owner what he would make in a day which was 150 Haitian dollars. Then he said he also needed money for pain medicine.
Telling him to wait there, I went to the big building to get money and a note that I wanted him to sign which would release me from future problems. I decided to give him 300 Haitian dollars and a bottle of Ibuprophen for his pain. Handing him the money, I told him 150 was for his boss and 150 was for him and told him how to take the pain medicine.
Do I think he was in pain? No, not at all. But, at that moment it didn't matter. What mattered was that the situation come to a conclusion. Too often, foreigners are slapped with huge fees in situations like this and I was determined that would not happen to me. The Lord had a man there that continued to say, "It was not her fault." And, Petit Homme recognized the taxi driver as his neighbor!!!
My lesson has been on the armor of God and today the part of the armor we would learn was the shoes as the Gospel of peace. I can't tell you how peace prevailed through all of that and as I related the story to the kids, they got the picture of what God desires for us. There isn't a situation that we cannot overcome if we walk in peace.
Walk in peace today and be blessed. It's Good Friday. Our Lord on the day He died, took a lot of pain for our peace. Bless Him by walking in that which He died to give you.
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