Unwritten Rules

Gepubliceerd op Gecategoriseerd als english

You are a sexy woman!  shouted a little boy from the back in our car, while I was driving the car to the place where he lives, somewhere in the middle of nowhere.  I drove from little Darda Church to bring a mom/ grandmom with more than a handful kids home.
Halfway we stopped by a shop to buy some bread, making good use of the car while you get a ride. We park in front of the shop. One of the boys throws his half eaten apple out of the window on the path leading to the shop. He jumps through the window too pee to the wall of the store.
I am watching it all in amazement… I did expect some different habits, but this was a little beyond what I expected.
While I am still confused by the speed with which everything happens, the mom comes back, not only with bread, but also with more sweeties to add to the energy of the lively and wild boys.
Doors are closed again and sweeties are eaten and all the six or eight kids are somewhere in the car. More kids than seats, so no seatbelts. I did put the little one in Laurens’ seat, but he managed within 30 seconds to get out. With or without the help of the other kids.
I drive on, slowly and carefully, a bit overwhelmed, I have to say. Once in a while looking in my mirror to think about what else can go wrong. I see one of the little guys opening the window. The freezing wind is just a very small problem, comparing with the handle to open the door. What is just next to the window.
Ough! Is the door locked? Or can he open it?
Never mind… drive on.. prayer for safety is surely necessary.
The light above my head is switch on and off, the girl next to me tries the music, but I manage to make clear to her that it doesn’t work.. A little lie wouldn’t be so bad in this situation. I am glad that the GPS is hidden in the drawer in the front. I hope that they don’t know that these things exist.
If you were ever thinking that it was Holy Business to bring Roma to church, or back… this is the real story. And still. We see that they are looking forward to this little trip, listen to stories, sing some songs, drink coffee. It is very special to see them coming and loving it, eager to listen, but I have to say, it is challenging when all our unwritten rules are ignored all at once. As if they can’t possibly exist, and it’s just impossible to explain just a few of them to my passengers, because I don’t speak their language well enough yet.
And so, I found out that we actually have a few Unwritten Rules about behaviour in our car:

  • We don’t shout particular things to the driver.
  • We usually don’t stop to pee on the wall of the shop while your mother is getting some bread.
  • We usually try not to eat too much in the car, because nobody in our family likes to vacuum clean it.
  • When we eat an apple (which is allowed because it doesn’t leave such a mess;) we eat the whole thing and not just half.
  • We don’t put too many people in the car
  • We use the seatbelts.

We don’t have unwritten rules like: try the music, open and close the window, flick the light switch, jump in the car and that kind of thing… But when every single of my unwritten rules were ignored all at once, I felt a bit overwhelmed, to put it mildly.
Till I drove on and came at the final corner before the little rough place, where they live.
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And suddenly I realized that this looked very familiar. It looked like the hedges and corners and -far away- places where Jesus is talking about when He invites people for the Great Banquet. (Luke 14:23) And just this little perspective, turned this adventurous tour into an honourable job.

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