Leaving Mexico in Triplication
At 3am Sunday May 31, the Prectices, the Reams, and the Goodlings met at the Pemex outside of Los Heroes off the Periferico with a destination in mind and a plan A, B, and C in hand. Cheryl led the way (and Dawn rode with her ) and she carried about 30 boxes of 'stuff' in her pick-up. The caravan was like deja-vu, as the Reams and Goodlings following a Prectice vehicle into Mexico 21 months ago, the difference here was that Neil was not making the drive, nor using his truck, and of course we were driving north this time, not south.
After a quick drop into OXXO for coffee, cokes, cookies and a few Monsters.... and a prayer, we were on our way. God graciously led us around Mexico City without incident ( usually the traffic polic
e look for out of state vehicles to harass seeking a type of bribe- 'multa' or 'mordida') and we made great time to
Monterrey which was a plan B overnight stay if we didn't feel up to crossing the boarder once we arrived there. We pulled into the parking lot of the Los Generales buffet and headed in for some well earned food, it was around 3PM ( 12 hours later for those keeping score at home) Upon returning to our vehicles anticipating an uneventful departure from this fine city 'of mountains' Tyler was greeted at his side of the van by a mall security guy on a 4-wheeler, who rattled something off that I couldn't quite hear from the drivers side. "What was that?" I asked Tyler as i sat in the seat and prepared to start the van. " He said we left this window down the whole way while we were in the restaurant, but he watched our truck the whole time w
e were away so that no one messed with it!" Wow, I have no idea how that window got put down before we went in, but sure enough it was, we had a bunch of pesos as well as bills for tolls in plain view, but nothing was disturbed. When the guy came back around, I waived him over and gave him a nice tip and big grinned 'thank-you'!
Navigating the streets in Mexico is often challenging for a variety of reasons, one being that they often have a variety of patterns or systems of turn lanes, lateral roads, and interesting designs that being an 'outsider' is not obvious at first as to how it works ( did I mention an often lack of signage?) This fine city is no exception and as we are trying to navigate our way back out of the city onto A highway that will take us north thru Nuevo Laredo and across the boarder, we apparently made a turn that isn't allowed. We found that out as a police car comes flying up the lateral beside us and trys to wave the 3 vehicle caravan over, finally successfully the second attempt! There were two officers that interacted with us, the driver was sort of a picture of Sammy Davis Jr. without tap shoes, the other guy was built like a linebacker and actually knew a good deal of English. Sammy Davis collected my license and car papers, as well as Derek Ream's documents, while 'explaining' to us individually what we did wrong and how much trouble we were in. ( this guy spoke really fast! ) After more time had gone by then I felt was necessary or normal ( i couldn't really see what all was happening up front at Cheryl's truck where most of the conversation was happening with the lin
ebacker) I was about to get out of the van when Sammy gets out, comes back and in rapid Spanish says something about his boss saying that if we just pay for our tickets right here right now then they won't have to keep our licenses, car papers, and we won't have to go to the police station tomorrow to pay and retrieve our most necessary items. I said nothing. Partly because I didn't understand half of what he said, mostly because I clearly picked up the context of his offer ' give us cash for our pockets now, and this all goes away real quick like'. That, my friends, is not the way we operate here in Mexico. Some choose to pay and go, to save the time, we choose to take the time and to try to follow the law and principle.
Sammy left and went back to his car more frustrated than he was when he finally got us to pull over initially. 10 minutes later, i decided to walk up to Cheryl's truck and see what was going on. She was on here call phone (having just spoken with Neil, and he with the linebacker, she was now on with their lawyer trying to learn exactly what these guys can and can't do by law) I walked around to the passenger side and Dawn was talking with the linebacker in Spanish and trying to 'explain' what we knew we did, and what we knew we didn't do ( they were now adding a 'going down a one way street the wrong way' charge to the original wrong right hand turn infraction. She introduced me to him as her husband and he greeted me with a hand shake and a respectful pleased to meet you etc.
He then started to explain to me the 'problems' in Spanish and then asked, " do you understand spanish well?" "mas o menos", I replied, "usually menos!" He then started asking me some questions in English. We were interrupted as Cheryl gave her cell to him so that he and the lawyer could talk directly. I am not sure what all was said, but enough for these guys to start to realize that they were 'barking up the wrong tree' here today. He turned back to me and asked, " are you guys Christians?" yes, i said. All of you? yes again. Which one is the pastor or leader of the group? Well, I am sort of a pastor ( by Biblical definition anyway) I replied. ' Well, you sister or friend or whatever she is ( referring to Cheryl ) isn't doing right. She isn't right by not giving us here license and papers. It's wrong of her." Well, I said, our licenses are actually the property of the USA and you can't keep them." " I need something to hold to ensure that you will come back and pay the fine." He said a few words in Spanish, I didn't catch it. Looked me in the eye and said, " you guys can go. I don't need her papers, you can have yours back, there is no ticket, no infraction, nothing. God bless you guys, just go" At this point Derek and I asked for our papers, that Sammy had in the cruiser, and we walked there with the linebacker. As he handed us our papers, I tried once again, in Spanish, to explain that all we want to do is what is right. If we broke the law we want to pay the proper fine, the proper way, but we would sure like to leave Monterrey today and get to the boarder. He said " the only way to do that is to pay with cash, right now, God bless you guys, bye" Because he knew full well by that point that we were not going to pay a mordida and if we pushed the issue and demanded to see
his boss that he could loose his job because the way he had conducted himself in trying to 'scare' us into a pay-off.
That incident cost us an extra hour, and a critical hour of daylight, but again God was so gracious as these guys returned after speeding away initially, to give us an escort and lead us out of town. We safely made it to the boarder, thru customs/immigration, a long line of traffic on the bridge into the US, and wearily hit our beds in our hotel in Laredo around 11:30PM!
What a day, but what examples of the Lord's hand and care and attention to every detail as we made our way 'out of Mexico' this last day of May 2009. We were once again reminded of this: Vaya con Dios o es mejor no vas ( go with God or it's better you don't go )
He gave us a special sunset moment
