It is pretty easy to lose something when you travel by taxi (in my opinion). You may be juggling wallet (or purse), bags of groceries, maps, umbrella or sunglasses. Unlike when driving your own car, you can't simply return to the parked car and retrieve what you forgot. I have gone many months, and hundreds of taxi rides, without losing anything. (We spend a fair amount of money here on taxis, but not even a third of what we spent driving our own cars back in Canada.)
However Jan and I were in and out of more taxis than usual last week while spending eight days in Hanoi. Getting in and out of so many cars I three times experienced loss - each time my own fault.
It is not difficult, I contend, to confuse a Vietnamese 10,000 dong bill with a 100,000 bill. (Maybe it is easier when you are mildly colour blind.) The bills differ only slightly in colour and if not careful, it is possible to confuse four zeroes with five. As I moved out of one cab, I gave the driver (I thought) a 5,000, 10,000 and 20,000 bill (app. $1.75) that included a small tip. Unnoticed by me, I had just lost $4.50. As Jan and I moved away from the taxi, the driver pursued us - I had given him 125,000 ($6.25) by mistake. His honesty saved my loss.
A couple of days later I made sure I had my reading glasses as I stepped out of the taxi. But it was not until the car had driven away that I noticed my sun glasses were not on top of my head - they must have been left on the back seat of the cab. It was a hot, very sunny day and we were walking to our next stop - the loss was now painfully obvious. Then to our amazement, we saw the cab driver had done a u-turn and was waving my sun glasses out of the driver's window. I uttered a heart felt "Cam on" as I recovered the glasses. It took me perhaps ten seconds before I turned back to offer a reward - and by then he had driven away.
Those losses - and their recovery were only a warm up for the major loss of the week. Two days later, as I exited another taxi, I heard a small thump. I turned around, thinking I had dropped something. However the driver pointed to the passenger side seat belt. I assumed he meant that the metal part of the belt had made the noise as I was getting out. I closed the door and walked toward our hosts home. As I approached their house, around a corner and maybe 50 meters away, I patted my left front pocket - the place I always keep my iphone - and it was empty. Panicked, I checked my other pockets - no phone.
I told Jan of my loss, asked her to have our host quickly dial my phone to connect with the cab driver, and ran back to the road. There was no sign of the taxi and no sign of the phone. An expensive phone, contact numbers, memos, calendar - all lost!
However when the phone number was called, to our shock, someone answered. But confusion reigned for ten minutes. The driver claimed he was coming back - and we waited and waited. Another call was made by a Vietnamese friend of our friend. After some minutes a third call was made and answered. The driver claimed to have returned with the phone but was nowhere to be seen. I hurried to another corner, 50 meters away to try and find him from another direction.
While I was absent, the confusion was clarified. In fact the phone had been dropped on the road outside of the taxi. After the car drove away - and it must have been very soon after - a 12 year old boy had picked up the phone. He was the one answering - and was in the vicinity. But all four of us were trying to find what we thought was a taxi and driver, not a boy on a bicycle. With the lost phone returned, I offered the boy 100,000 (not 10,000) but he would not take any reward money.
There followed quite a few expressions of thanks - to the boy, to the Vietnamese friend who made the calls and connected to the boy, to our Canadian host for his help in enlisting his friend's help; And to the Lord who had answered several desperate prayers. Lost phones are not usually returned - especially expensive iphones.
Lost - and then found! No need for an expensive replacement; no loss of recent contact numbers, no waste of time and effort to recover information. (Yes, yes, I know, I should back up everything every night. :) )
For several hours I felt a quiet gratitude, relief and pleasure that the lost had been found. It reminded me of the joy expressed by the shepherd, the homemaker and the father in Jesus' stories collected in Luke 15. Yet neither I nor those three characters experienced anything like the joy of heaven when someone who is spiritually lost is finally found.
I want to share that heavenly joy. Please Father, may I help the eternally lost to be found.
However Jan and I were in and out of more taxis than usual last week while spending eight days in Hanoi. Getting in and out of so many cars I three times experienced loss - each time my own fault.
It is not difficult, I contend, to confuse a Vietnamese 10,000 dong bill with a 100,000 bill. (Maybe it is easier when you are mildly colour blind.) The bills differ only slightly in colour and if not careful, it is possible to confuse four zeroes with five. As I moved out of one cab, I gave the driver (I thought) a 5,000, 10,000 and 20,000 bill (app. $1.75) that included a small tip. Unnoticed by me, I had just lost $4.50. As Jan and I moved away from the taxi, the driver pursued us - I had given him 125,000 ($6.25) by mistake. His honesty saved my loss.
A couple of days later I made sure I had my reading glasses as I stepped out of the taxi. But it was not until the car had driven away that I noticed my sun glasses were not on top of my head - they must have been left on the back seat of the cab. It was a hot, very sunny day and we were walking to our next stop - the loss was now painfully obvious. Then to our amazement, we saw the cab driver had done a u-turn and was waving my sun glasses out of the driver's window. I uttered a heart felt "Cam on" as I recovered the glasses. It took me perhaps ten seconds before I turned back to offer a reward - and by then he had driven away.
Those losses - and their recovery were only a warm up for the major loss of the week. Two days later, as I exited another taxi, I heard a small thump. I turned around, thinking I had dropped something. However the driver pointed to the passenger side seat belt. I assumed he meant that the metal part of the belt had made the noise as I was getting out. I closed the door and walked toward our hosts home. As I approached their house, around a corner and maybe 50 meters away, I patted my left front pocket - the place I always keep my iphone - and it was empty. Panicked, I checked my other pockets - no phone.
I told Jan of my loss, asked her to have our host quickly dial my phone to connect with the cab driver, and ran back to the road. There was no sign of the taxi and no sign of the phone. An expensive phone, contact numbers, memos, calendar - all lost!
However when the phone number was called, to our shock, someone answered. But confusion reigned for ten minutes. The driver claimed he was coming back - and we waited and waited. Another call was made by a Vietnamese friend of our friend. After some minutes a third call was made and answered. The driver claimed to have returned with the phone but was nowhere to be seen. I hurried to another corner, 50 meters away to try and find him from another direction.
While I was absent, the confusion was clarified. In fact the phone had been dropped on the road outside of the taxi. After the car drove away - and it must have been very soon after - a 12 year old boy had picked up the phone. He was the one answering - and was in the vicinity. But all four of us were trying to find what we thought was a taxi and driver, not a boy on a bicycle. With the lost phone returned, I offered the boy 100,000 (not 10,000) but he would not take any reward money.
There followed quite a few expressions of thanks - to the boy, to the Vietnamese friend who made the calls and connected to the boy, to our Canadian host for his help in enlisting his friend's help; And to the Lord who had answered several desperate prayers. Lost phones are not usually returned - especially expensive iphones.
Lost - and then found! No need for an expensive replacement; no loss of recent contact numbers, no waste of time and effort to recover information. (Yes, yes, I know, I should back up everything every night. :) )
For several hours I felt a quiet gratitude, relief and pleasure that the lost had been found. It reminded me of the joy expressed by the shepherd, the homemaker and the father in Jesus' stories collected in Luke 15. Yet neither I nor those three characters experienced anything like the joy of heaven when someone who is spiritually lost is finally found.
I want to share that heavenly joy. Please Father, may I help the eternally lost to be found.
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