'providential'

apologies for the long pause. hope you enjoy this story!

wednesday i traveled from romania to germany. two plane rides. each of them less than two hours. but still .. i got to be on a plane! traveling is something i always enjoy, and this day was no exception. i arrived at the airport in germany and needed to get down to the train station (connected to the airport, just takes a bit of walking to get there) for the train i had a ticket on that left 40 minutes after i had collected my baggage.

when i arrived at the train station, i looked up at the wall to see which trains were leaving when. my train wasn't on the list. i got a feeling that all was not well with the world .. and walked back a short ways to the place where you can buy tickets. i showed one of the women working there my ticket, and she said 'oh.. this is from the main station in the city, not from the airport station.' she looked at my sad face and said 'there's a train leaving on line 4 in 4 minutes. it's ten minutes into the city center and the conductor probably won't come and ask for tickets. so .. that's what i did. i walked very quickly and made the train (it was two minutes late, even, so i didn't have to worry!) and although the conductor passed by, there were many people already waiting to exit the train at the stop so she didn't ask for any tickets. thanks, God!

the track i needed to be at was just one over, so it was easy to get there and i even had almost 10 minutes to spare! turns out the train was running 10 minutes late, so i had a bit more time. once i got on the train and found a seat (i had a seat on my ticket but it was in use, so i just found one nearby) that was next to another woman. i assumed she was a german, and when she went to the bathroom she spoke german to me. but .. after she came back, she called her mother. and .. what language did she happen to use?! why, romanian, of course! so we had an hour and a half to talk about all sorts of things! there were some mechanical problems with the train, so it stopped for a bit and went a slightly different direction .. but God had provided this woman who would kindly translate for me! and who let me use her phone to call the friends i am visiting, letting them know i was going to be late.

it felt so .. providential. something that is just too much to be a coincidence. i come to a different country .. and end up having a ticket for the wrong train .. and sit down next to a random woman .. who just happens to be fluent in romanian and german (and at least 3 other languages as well!) .. and who wants to talk about some of what God is doing in romania, and things we understand about the culture. such a gift! made me feel that i truly am taken care of. with nothing to worry about :)