That time I got on the wrong train…
“You should go ahead and start planning your squad leader vacation,” my squad mentor told my leadership team, as I sat cross legged on the ground of our second floor prayer room, in our ministry’s house, headphones in watching our WhatsApp group leadership call early on a Friday morning. With all of the teams heading out to their ministry sites we weren’t meeting at our traditional coffee shop, but I was calling in from Sumpango, Guatemala, in the house of our ministry. I hear a mix of sounds in addition to the conversations of our call; my team downstairs as they head out for their adventure day, mixed with the sounds of birds on the roof a few feet away, and the “bombas”, a type of firecracker that goes off nonstop in Guate.
I unmute my mic, “Are we able to leave the country for our squad leader vacation?” I ask tentatively, thinking about the week off for squad leaders to get away which would take place in our next country Romania. “I believe so, but I will look into that,” our squad mentor responds.
In the week following, after permission was granted to leave the country, we start throwing into our group chat some possible ideas of places where we would look… Greece… Turkey… Bucharest. “Hmm”, I thought to myself , “Where would I want to go? “And, where can we go on a budget?”
Israel…
I type, “Cheap flights from Bucharest to Tel Aviv” as a long shot — In astonishment I see prices unheard of to any American hoping to go to Israel, but an under 3 hour flight from Eastern Europe on a cheap airline held prices I could only dream of. I do some quick research on the airline to make sure that it isn’t a hoax, and then text my leadership team’s group chat. “What’s our vision for this squad leader vacation? Restful or Adventurous? Or Both?” I ask them. One week in Israel would be jam packed, but it would be Israel…
“I found really cheap round trip tickets to Tel Aviv,” I put in the group chat.
“Wait…Tel Aviv as in ISRAEL?” they ask. “WAIT, YES I FORGOT ISRAEL IS CLOSE. PLEASE”
The excitement builds as we start dreaming…
Fast Forward 3 months later…
Once again I am off with my team partnering with a church about 6 hours north of the rest of the squad in a university town in the northern part of Romania. This time, I am sitting at our kitchen table of our little house that my team is living in while we are working with a local church. The sun had just risen as I make coffee in our coffee pot as quietly as I can since the rest of my team is still asleep. I love the quiet mornings here, the windows are foggy as the heat from inside makes contact with the cool windows and the chilly morning air outside. The sun starts coming up over the mountains and around the houses and hits the brown field that is next to the house. I spend time with Jesus and read my Bible as I drink my coffee. I am excited as I will be traveling by train to the capital during the day to fly out early the next morning to head to Israel with my leadership team. Traveling always excites me. I love thinking about the people all over the world who are traveling for a vast array of reasons, destinations, and circumstances and how the locations of airports and bus stations (and all other forms of travel) are intersections of time where people overlap on other people’s experiences.
My backpack is all packed next to me and has everything I need as I am not checking a bag. My teammates come out to say goodbye to me as I go outside to meet my host who graciously offered to drive me to the train station. Upon arriving at the train station we check the board and head out to platform 4. It is still cool outside and a little breezy as it is February in Romania, but the sun feels nice and warm as it moves higher and higher in the sky. The small board on platform 4 was still showing the time for the train that came through at 7:30 am. “That’s interesting that the time hasn’t changed.” I comment, but we check the main board again and it is the right platform at the right time. “What time does your ticket say?” My host asks. “9:25”, I reply as we wait for my train. My train was the only scheduled train within the hour before or after and at 9:21, we see the red and white locomotive start chugging down to the platform.
“Here’s your train, see you in a week”, he says. I thank him and hop on the rather empty train and sit down on the bright red seat next to a window and settle in for the 8 hours to Bucharest. Approximately 2 minutes after getting on board, the train starts moving out of the station. I look down at my watch, 9:24. “Interesting, that was fast” I think to myself as I look out the window as the towns start to pass by.
About an hour and a half into the 8 hours, an older gentlemen dressed with matching blue vest, coat and hat comes around, smiles and asks in Romanian for my ticket. I open my phone to my e-ticket and he scans it. It beeps back at him. He pauses and scans it again… the same sound. He looks down and reads my ticket and looks at the number. In Romanian again, he starts speaking to me rather quickly. I ask him if he knows any English, to which he shakes his head. I open up Google Translate on my phone, and ask him if something is wrong with my ticket. We have an exchange via Google Translate where he explains that I am on the wrong train. I ask him where this train is going and he looks at my ticket and sees that I am going to the main Bucharest train station, he responds that this train is going to the same place. Still confused and not sure what happened with my ticket I decide that I will just buy a new ticket since I don’t have many options and I am traveling right through the middle of nowhere with maybe a house or two every few miles. “I will buy a new ticket to Bucharest Nord”, I type on my phone and show him the translation in Romanian. He nods at me and shows me the price on his machine. I grab my wallet and pull out my card. I tap it against the payment square and it declines. “What? That is strange”. I pull out my second backup international debit card for situations like this one, and again payment failed. “This is so strange”. “One more time”, I tell him as I have my Adventures credit card thinking, “It’s not going to deny a credit card”, but again it declines.
“Well, now what do I do?” I am on the wrong train in the middle of nowhere, sitting next to this ticket man and a wrong ticket. I start thinking through my options quickly. Since I had done my research, I knew that we should be heading through a town called Braşov which was a large city in Romania. I type, “How much is a ticket to Braşov?” He types in a new location into his machine and shows me the number. “Perfect,” I give a sigh of relief, I have exactly enough cash to pay for a ticket to get to Braşov. I hand him the money and he prints me a ticket. As he leaves, I thank God that I had enough money in cash to buy a new ticket, although still bewildered about why my e-ticket didn’t work. A few minutes later, the man comes back this time accompanied by a younger man in a suit jacket. He tells me that he knows English and asks to see my ticket. He explains to me that the train we were on had just come from Vienna and it had been extremely late to pass through Alba Iulia and it just happened to be coming through right around the same time as my train should have been coming through. The train I had a ticket for should have been coming down the tracks a mere 2 minutes after the train that I had prematurely boarded. “What are the chances of that?” I think to myself. I missed my train by 2 minutes because this train was 90 minutes late.
The man continues to explain that when I get off in Braşov I can wait for the train that I should be on and I won’t have to book a new ticket and I can just hop off this train and hop on the next train. I thank him for his explanation and he returns to his seat. At this point in my journey with the Lord I start to look around and ask Him, “What are you up to?”, “Is there a reason why I am on this train?” “Or is there another reason why I am not on that train?” Or is there something or someone in Braşov?”.
Several hours later we begin pulling into Braşov and I grab my backpack from the top shelf, wave goodbye to the older woman across from me and deboard the train. I head downstairs to the main board to check the time of the next train and see that it should be coming through in about 15 minutes. I pull out a little bit of Lei from the ATM, just in case it is my ticket that is the problem and head back up to the platforms. Wanting to make sure that I am in the correct spot I turn to look around for someone to ask. I see a woman standing by the stairs and take a step to go talk to her and then pause as I see that she is crying.
I look the other direction, there is another girl nearby. I walk up to the second girl, “Hi, do you know English”. She stares back at me with a blank face, shakes her head and walks away.
I turn back around and the same girl is still there. The Holy Spirit tells me “She’s the one I want you to talk to, go ask her”. I walk up to her and she looks at me and I ask again, “Excuse me, do you know English?”
“Yes, I speak English. Can I help you?” She responds in perfect English. I show her my ticket and ask if I am in the correct spot. She looks at my ticket, “Yes, I am on the same train, but it has been delayed an extra 20 minutes.” We continue to talk while we wait, about her life and interests, Romania, her career, and what I am doing in Romania. We start talking about faith and Jesus and eventually the conversation switches to prayer. “Can I pray for you?” I ask her after I get to know her story a little bit more and get to know her situation. She agrees and I pray for her.
As our train pulls in she turns and looks at me and makes the comment, “Hmm, maybe prayer is the reason why you came up to me today?” and then thanks me as she heads to a separate train car.
As I sat down in my correct seat this time, I was thinking about the comment she made about prayer. She, someone who doesn’t claim to have a relationship with Jesus, was touched and impacted by prayer and someone to listen. She recognized the power that prayer has. Do we recognize the impact that prayer has? That we have the opportunity to talk to the Creator of the Universe who made each one of us, about the joys, the hard things, the challenges, the praise and He is intentional with us and cares for us? (1 Peter 5:7)
Do we recognize the power that prayer has in our own lives, but also in the lives of those around us? Are we interruptible with our days to recognize and take advantage of the moments the Lord wants to encourage and see those we might be walking next to?
- Will you join me in praying for *B that she would follow Jesus and that she would understand His deep love for her and that He sees her and knows her?
- Let’s stop and recognize the power of prayer and give to the Lord the things that are on our hearts. Maybe look around you, is there someone who you can encourage and pray for today?
For the Glory of the Worthy King,
-Elizabeth
