Flat Tire #2

So, I prayed this morning, Lord show me how to love others better – humble me and let me be more dependant on you.  Well, being “Miss. I-can-not-plan-over-break-and-go-in-early-on-Monday” had a wrench, literally, thrown into her plans this morning…

All is well when I leave my house, I am dressed ready to go, and then I go to start my bike after a week of not driving it for a week. It will start in neutral but every time I go to put it in gear it dies… for 5 mins or so I am just kicking it and giving it gas and shoving it into first just to get it going, it keeps dying while I have an audience of a high school thai boy watching me as he waits for his bus.  I start driving to the end of my street then and notice my back tire is wobbly – my new sign that I have a busted tire. So will 100B in my pocket I go to the nearby gas sation and try to fill it up with air, of course the air tank is out too, so I have to try another tank.  Come to realize that my tire is just shot. What I have learned is GET OUR MOTORBIKE TIRES CHANGED BEFORE YOU HAVE HAD THEM FOR  A YEAR. Both my back tire and front tires were not punctured, but the nozzle had ripped out of both of them.  So it is now 7:00am and I am sitting that the gas station and already broken into a sweat, with a thai guy at the gas sation telling me in thai where I can get it fixed.  Unlike before it wasn’t just across the street, he just motions his hand out and to turn. So I realize at this point I have no plans for my Monday morning, since I was going to go into work early – so I call my principal saying, I don’t know what to do, but my tire is flat and I will be there when I can.  So when realizing that I am a single girl living in a foreign land where I don’t speak the language and don’t have a husband or dad I can call to come rescue me, I realize I have to do it by myself.

So, I suck up my sweatiness and realize if I don’t start walking I am not going to get anywhere. So my neck is drenched and at this point I am just frustrated, hot, and don’t really know where I am going or how long I am going to be walking down the highway, and I just start sobbing. Just crying out of frustration in being late to work and walking my bike along the highway. Even I walk past a pack of dogs and one of them starts biting at my leg, fortunately my pant legs were rolled up and they were thick so I couldn’t feel the bite, or get rabies while I was at it, and there was a lady there to shoo them away… so I keep on pushing my bike.  I finally realize that I am not going to ever find a tire place that is even open unless I attempt to ask someone again.  And pretty soon I pass by a Thai man leaving is house and he looks at me, and I must have looked pretty pathetic, sweating with tears in my eyes pushing my bike along a highway at 7:15 am. And he doesn’t speak English but says hold on with hand motions. And then he goes in his garage and gets out his motorbike and points for me to drive his bike, and that he would drive mine. So I follow him down the road and back down a little street and come upon two old men watching thai morning tv in a tiny little junk garage littered with old tires and pieces of motorbikes, out in front of a temple.  The only place open to fix tires – I never would have found the place. The guy tells him what I need and there I am sitting in the middle of junk, with 10 or so chickens walking around, stray dogs including two obese ones, and one with only one eyes, a Buddhist monk who, while clipping is nose hair and shaving his chin, is trying to practice his English with me.  I just had to stop and laugh and take a deep breath and say, “Thank you Lord for taking care of me yet again.”  I only had 40 baht on me so after they fixed my tire I had to drive to an ATM and then come back – and pay the rest of my 100 baht, but tipped them for their kindness.

I show up to school at 8, and find my classroom empty and the rest of my rooms on my floor empty and then realize there was a short assembly in the morning, so my kids had no idea I was even late, and I didn’t miss any time with them. They were fabulous kids this morning and laughed when I told them about my morning. But even to then top off my morning I go to my mailbox and there is a package in it with a sweet letter from Jared. I love when God lets little gifts and treats like that arrive when you need them the most.

So, that was the start to my Monday morning…