God’s Odd Provision

By Jean

It could have been quite serious. A sudden stop on a motor scooter going 50 kph. The Lord allowed me only scrapes, bruises, and a hard bang to the head making a cut requiring 4 stiches. What happened to my helmet, I don’t know.

Darrick arrived the night before and I had the day off. My 90 day check in time was coming up, and, since we don’t take more than one adult passenger on our motor scooters, Gary and I decided it was senseless leave Darrick alone or take two scooters and drag him into an Immigration Office experience.

So, I was driving myself along the inner ring road toward the Immigration Office. The next thing I know I am having a kind of day dream about having the right kind of documentation.

I think, “I shouldn’t be daydreaming, I’m riding a motor scooter.”

Then I opened my eyes to find myself sitting on the sidewalk. Straight ahead of me is a pick up truck stopped on the side of the street with a flat front tire. A little to my left, on the sidewalk, is my parked motor scooter.

“Oh darn, I’ve been in an accident,” was my next thought.

A lady was there asking for some kind of identification from me, so I pulled my passport out of the papers I was taking to Immigration. I should have given her the laminated passport copy and my WA driver’s license that I had in my zipped up pocket for such situations, but I wasn’t thinking too clearly.  The ambulance people and the police were already there, so I must have been out for awhile. I am still waiting for one of those special powers to show up that people get from a good bang on the head.

Then I decided I had better call Gary. The lady talking to me figured out what I was doing and told me to tell him the ambulance was taking me to some hospital that I couldn’t understand. Gary was wise enough to tell me to tell them to take me to McCormick. That was a hospital familiar to us, and my records were there.

My injuries were minimal enough that the ambulance driver had me sit in the passenger seat up front so he could put in the back a more badly injured man on a stretcher he picked up at a local police station before going to the hospital.

Gary and Darrick met the ambulance at the hospital and took care of all the admitting questions.

The cat scan of my head showed no brain injury. They also x-rayed my chest a little later, but they didn’t say why.

When I finally got to my room, Gary asked me more about where the accident was so he could go find my motor scooter. He went there and walked around in the rain for a couple of hours, but he couldn’t find it. All the information about the insurance coverage we had for accidents on that scooter were in the seat.

Towards evening the young man who had been driving the pick up, and his friend, came to see me in the hospital. Through their Thai, a little of mine, a drawing on paper, and an English word or two from them, they told us that they had turned in front of me with the pick up. It was too hard to get a much more detailed description than that about where I and my motor scooter and my helmet went after that. The best part was when  they told us that the police had my motor scooter! 

The next morning Gary went to my school to let them know I wouldn’t be there and to have Kru Maow help him find out where the police had my motor scooter.

It turned out that a young man, Mark, with experience teaching English was there that day. He was going to help me with my classes, but he ended up doing them for me. He did very well with such short notice.

Gary finally found the police station with the scooter and was able to get the insurance information back to the hospital before it was time for me to go. It was a good thing that it took them all morning to get through their discharging procedure.

Praise the Lord, the insurance paid for all of the hospital bills.

Gary and I went straight to the police station to see if we could get my motor scooter and to give my statement to the police. They insisted they needed an interpreter to talk to me, so they called Kru Malee.

She was on her way to a government office downtown with a few other people to take care of some school business, but she finally agreed to come over. The young man who was driving the pick up came over too, after awhile. The police decided he was at fault and everyone worked out what he would pay to fix the motor scooter. One of the policemen is supposed to be fixing it.

My helmet and sunglasses were gone, though. The police said the helmet went in the ambulance. It didn’t come out with me, though.

To get home I had to ride behind Gary without a helmet on. Just as we turned on to the ring road there was a police stop checking for helmets. The policeman stopped us and said he would give Gary a ticket. Suddenly Kru Malee ran up and explained how I had just lost my helmet in the accident yesterday. The policeman accepted her comments and didn’t give us a ticket. Then we made it home ok.

The next day I went to school to give Mark some ideas of what to do for the next couple of days. Then I went home.

This gave me a chance to spend a couple of days with Darrick that I wouldn’t have had. Also, Monday and Tuesday were holidays and days to rest up anyway.

That evening, I  found my sunglasses in the bottom of my backpack.

I guess God can’t show His protection and care so much unless there is something traumatic to protect us from.

:J