Cleaning up Budapest
Linda-Rose Michel, a guest blogger and student volunteer from Michigan, USA, kicks off our occasional series “God in My Suitcase”. There are a number of us who travel and often there are great little stories to be shared about the details of our trips. This blog will relate some of those stories is and look some of the life lessons and how we can learn about God everyday incidents. We hope you enjoy reading our stories and we would love to hear your stories too. If you have a story to tell then contact us here.
Keeping in touch
“Communication is key”, they say. “Keep in touch” they say. Well, it’s never been so obvious to me as it was a couple of weeks ago. A group of us packed our bags for an adventure in Budapest, Hungary and it was beautiful. The city was rich with history and had incredible buildings to check out. Don’t even get me started on the food: delicious.
Most days we stayed together as a big group, especially since only one of us speaks Hungarian, but there were some days where we decided to split up to see different sights. On those special occasions, we kept connected through texts. Since the rates were international, we tried to keep all texts to a minimum and hoped only to use it as a last resort.
© bnilsen – www.flickr.com – used under Creative Commons Licence
We had a great system that seemed to work out perfectly, until one of the last nights. A couple of the girls decided to head to the apartments a bit early to rest, do laundry, and relax while the rest of us wandered. We said our “Be Safe”s and “Don’t talk to strangers” as we bid them a goodnight, and soon they were on their merry way. Two minutes later, we realised that one of the girls had left behind her box of newly purchased laundry detergent. The worst part was she had it all planned out: washing that night, and next day for air dry. That way, she’d have clean and dry clothes for her continued travels. As you can see, it was imperative that she had her detergent.
Immediately, phones came out and texts were sent saying something like “Good luck with your washing…” or “I think you forgot something…”. When the charming texts went unanswered, we resorted to phone calls, but still nothing. After several attempts to make contact, time went by and we realised it was too late.
Of course the next logical choice was to go around the city, take photos with the box of detergent, add captions like “Detergent enjoying a night on the town”, and then post them on Facebook for her to see. Although her plans didn’t work out as she had hoped, we were able to make it into a fun memory.
As I’ve been looking back at our photos, this whole experience made me think about how we try to keep in touch with God. It’s as if God has the detergent that you need to make you clean. He’s desperately trying to reach you in order to direct you back to Him, so you can stay on track and remove all the hurt that life can bring. Unfortunately, the detergent can do you no good if you never “answer your phone” and connect with him. Why don’t you give his Text [The Bible] a read today?”
