There must be a better way!

There must be a better way to meet new people than what I experienced last week. Allow me to elaborate . . . . . . .

Sunday morning, getting ready to head to church . . . car has moderate trouble getting started. Not a good sign.
Wednesday morning, getting ready to go to the gym . . . . .car has even more trouble starting. Again, not good.
Thursday morning, getting ready to bring the kids to school . . . . .car simply won’t start. Very bad!!

While tinkering with the car trying to roughly determine the cause of said starting failure, a gentleman who lives in our apartment building came over and joined me looking under the hood for a moment and then kindly offered his car to take the kids to school. We have not had much interaction with this man in the past, so his offer was a little surprising. “The kids need to get to school.” he said simply.

Later that evening, my son and I went to go thank him again for his gracious offer of his vehicle, and for his real kindness to us. We brought the one thing we thought he might accept. We knew cash was out of the question for covering the cost of fuel, which is expensive here. So we brought sweets. He was a little shocked, but then invited us in, and only agreed to accept them if my son helped eat some. No 5 year old I know would turn that offer down. So, we went inside, sat down and had a nice chat with this kind man. There must be a better way to meet such nice people than to have your car break down though, right?

Another episode that same day . . . . when the breakdown mechanic (roadside assistance kind of thing) arrived, he determined after numerous attempts that the only option was to push start the car. We do not have a small, lightweight car. It is big and heavy. So, with the mechanic in the driver’s seat, I began pushing the car. No luck on the first few attempts. Slowly a few young men who wandered by began helping me push. By the time we finally got the car started we had pushed it up and down our street at least 5-6 times. The guys who helped were very kind and I thanked them as much as our various languages would allow. But there must be a better way to meet these guys than to have your car break down, right?

A final episode from the same day . . . .after dropping the car off at the service garage to have proper repairs made to it, I needed to get home. I flagged down an auto-rickshaw and told him where I needed to go. He said in broken English that he did not know exactly where I wanted to go, but if I knew the way he would take me. Along the way we had a lovely chat about various things, again, as much as our broken use of each other’s language would allow. He was a very nice guy, and was one of the few honest auto drivers I have met in this city. But there must be a better way to meet guys like this, right?

I could also tell about a couple of very helpful and conscientious taxi drivers, a very helpful service advisor at the service garage, another auto driver who took me back to the service garage to pick up the car, etc. All because of a break down with our car.

So as a result of our car breaking down, I met and interacted with a hand full of guys who blessed me in some way, but who would have likely remained unknown to me otherwise. So good things came out of it. That does not mean we are giving up our car altogether or that we hope it breaks down more so we can meet more nice people. What it does mean is that this is a good reminder that all around us are people with stories of their own, people with break downs of their own, and maybe some who have needs we could help meet, if only we take the opportunities to do so.