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Perhaps you’ve seen dream sequences in movies where one of the characters is running, but seemingly in slow motion.  He tries to go faster, but its as if his feet are dragging through molasses.  The goal is within sight, but then through camera effects, the distance seems to stretch before your eyes, signalling the impossibility of the situation.  I always thought these scenes were manufactured for dramatic effect.  Nothing similar could happen in real life.  Until today.

There were two main things on our agenda today.  The first was for Chris and me to travel to Olomouc (Oh low moats) – home of the world famous “stinky cheese” (ask me more about this when I get home), and the second was to join board-game night with the church youth. Our trip to Olomouc was to meet with national leaders of Josiah Venture so that we could get to know them better in the setting of the local Christmas Market (I envisioned at least one dish with stinky cheese).  The travel back from Olomouc meant that Chris and I would be a little late to the youth event, but I booked our train tickets before we left and we were prepared to make the most of both events.  As you might have guessed from my introduction, things didn’t quite go as planned.

Chris and I said farewell to the kids after a quick lunch at the apartment, then headed off to the train station.  However, about 5 minutes into our 25ish minute walk, I realized that the printer that I had printed the tickets on had run out of ink, and although we had the ticket number, we couldn’t read the carriage number or seats that we had reserved.  Oddly also, I couldn’t find any record of the tickets on my phone.  After quickly consulting with one another, we decided to go back to the apartment and retrieve the electronic tickets from my laptop, realizing however, that would give us less than 20 minutes to travel a distance our map program said took 25.

Here is where the dream sequence begins.  Chris and I have been run/walking most of the distance to the station, gaining confidence as the map program showed our ETA getting within the window of actually getting on the train.  But as we rounded the final corner, I saw the train sitting at the station (not normally a good sign because their average stops are only for minutes).  With an extra burst of speed, I ran down the stairs leading to the train platforms, trying to will Chris forward as I did so.  I hastily checked the monitors for which platform the train was on, only to see that it was leaving sooner than we expected (imagine the zoom camera effect now).  As I ran up the stairs to the platform, my hiking-boot-clad feet dragging behind me, I realized the futility of the situation.  I reached the platform just in time to see the train speeding away in the distance.

What do you do in times like this?  Well as Pastor Tim is fond of saying “God works all things together for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to his purpose.” (Romans 8:28 NIV).  We believe this verse.  As we serve God here, we trust in the hope it provides.  Rather than go back to the apartment, defeated by these events, we hopped onto the next available train at the station that was headed in the right direction – Ostrava.  There is a major railway hub there, and we hoped that we might be able to transfer to Olomouc and salvage the meeting.  This also turned out not to be the case as we found there were route closures in the direction we needed to go.

One roadblock, and I typically think God may be asking me to persevere.  Multiple roadblocks: I start looking around for what else God might be asking of us.

Long story sort, God arranged schedules (and our destination city) so that we meet with Tiffany Short, another missionary that Family Bible Church supports.  She lives in Ostrava within minutes from the train station Chris and I arrived at.  We met at a local coffee shop and exchanged encouragements and prayer requests.  We are really thankful for this time we had together.  What’s more Chris and I were back in time for the beginning of the Board Game Night.

Praises and Prayers