Thanks, Mom

There's a saying that much of what parents teach their children is caught and not taught. I want to thank my mother for the things she threw my way and allowed me to catch. Growing up with a father in the army I moved 13 times before gradutating from college, including one move to Thailand and one to Puerto Rico. One of the things I remember about all those moves is exploring each new place. I was not naturally inquisitive. What I remember is my mother driving all over a new city with me in the back seat either saying or thinking, "Do you know where we are?" and my mother giving a non-commital reply that did nothing to reassure me that she did in fact know where we were. Some of these trips were shopping expeditions, and some of them were strictly sight-seeing. We always explored a new location thoroughly.

Maybe being driven all over Thailand in a Jeep (picture a gray Jeep, issued by the U.S. navy), Washington, D. C. in a Mercury station wagon, and Puerto Rico in a VW (remember the big green, standard shift campers?) set the stage for me to drive all over West Germany and Czeckoslovakia just 15 years later. My driving was for many of the same reasons my mother had driven around. There was too much to see to just stay home.

Now that we are living in Poland without a car I've felt somewhat restricted in my ability to explore. The city bus just doesn't explore that interesting little side street. The team does have a van that is used for ministry, and I've been able to drive it on occasion. Most recently was Friday night. Another team member and I picked up several ladies and went to Bible study. (Many Poles don't drive, and there were lots of suprised comments that I was really going to drive?!) As we were leaving the Bible study the pastor's wife thanked me for driving. I shrugged it off and told her it was no problem. She replied that having someone besides her husband to drive was really a blessing to her and the other ladies and to her husband.

Thanks mom for all those trips in the VW, for teaching me to drive that same VW and allowing me to bless the Polish women in of all things, a VW! I love you.