Subterfuge and Friendship

“I need you to come to the district license office with me for a driver’s license,” my fellow staff member and trusted friend “Abba” said. Well, Pastor Tirumbu had hinted that he wanted me to get a license sometime during my stay, so I guessed that now was the time.

Only it turned out that it wasn’t for MY driver’s license: it was in regards to a license for another missionary who also had dark hair, and who wouldn’t be back in the region before the document expired.

Abba later explained that if I’d not been there to stand in as a cardboard-cutout obruni, he would still have gotten the renewal: he would just have had to pay twice as much. So it was either trickery or bribery, and at least the former was cheaper. Abba did all the talking while I stood by trying to look as white as possible. They did ask my age at the conclusion, and I gave my own, amazed that they didn’t cross-check against the birthdate in the documents! Had they done so, they’d have found that the woman in question was nearly twice my age.

“That was possibly one of the most deceptive things I’ve ever done,” I informed Abba afterward. “Next time can we do something completely honest?”

On a happier note, we continued on into town so another friend could run an errand, and when she got back in the van, she asked me whether I walk along that street. I acknowledged that I do on my way home, and she told me that she’d overheard the street vendors saying to one another, “Oh, look, there’s our white friend in that vehicle.” =)

And on a final earnest note, one of my friends-that-I’ve-made-on-my-walk is a devout Muslim woman…who has said she’ll come to church with me this Sunday! Please pray for her, for our friendship, and for the many other friendships I’m making throughout the town.

Thanks for praying!