Mon. June 7, The Wallet Story/Learning Lessons

When events are completely out of your control, how do you respond?

Over the years, I've seen people's reactions to uncontrollable situations and long ago made the decision that when something is out of my hands, the only thing I can do is trust it to God. There is no point in panicking, being anxious, screaming, etc. I may feel completely helpless, but I have learned to trust in the only One who can help, knowing that He has me in His hands.

Monday morning, June 7th, found me finally taking the bus from Baden in to Vienna, to spend the day there. I had spent breakfast assuring Chris, Siegfried and Christian that I would be just fine by myself, as I had traveled plenty of places that were more dangerous than Vienna. After a forty minute bus ride, I found myself in the center of Vienna, directly in front of the beautiful Vienna Opera House. I decided to start my day with a trip to......Starbucks! I was quite excited to see my first Starbucks and iced coffee in over ten months and thought that was a fine way to start off my afternoon. After using the restroom, I went to order and found that my wallet was missing from my purse. It wasn't in the bathroom and no one had bumped against me, so I was quite certain that I somehow hadn't gotten it all the way back into my purse after paying for the bus. I ran back to the bus stop, but the bus was gone.

As I stood there, it hit me all at once how very valuable that wallet was to me. Inside it was:
*my debit card
*my credit card
*50 Eur0
*$300 dollars
*my driver's license(my ID)
*the Buchholz's ph. no.

I stood there in Vienna, all of the sudden feeling very small and lonely and helpless. Up until that moment, I had never in my life felt the helplessness of having no money and being completely stranded. I very quickly prayed and asked God to help me figure out what to do in this scary situation. After that I started looking around for an English speaking tour group. The only thing that I could figure out to do was to explain what had happened and ask for the 6 Euro that I needed to take the bus back to Baden. I knew that if I could make it back there, the Buchholz's would help me contact the bus company. I soon spotted a group of retired Americans and feeling very awkward about the begging I was about to do, went up to them. As I began to tell what had happened, I observed them looking at each other and refusing to make eye contact with me. By the time that I finished explaining, the group had quickly gone from about 10 couples down to 2 ladies. As I finished talking, they patted me on the shoulder, said, "Good luck. I'm sure someone will help you!", and wandered off. I was absolutely stunned that these elderly fellow countrymen would look at me as a beggar and not help me. Their Hungarian tour guide, on the other hand, watched them all leave, and then turned to me with great concern. Not only did she give me the bus fare, but she gave me her phone number and asked me to call her when I made it back to Baden and found out anything about my wallet.

I returned to Baden, praying the entire way, knowing that there was very little chance I would get my wallet back and also knowing that I was about to spend the afternoon on the phone with my bank and credit card company. Christian called the bus company and as he was talking, I could see it in his eyes and hear it in his voice, even though I didn't understand what he was saying...they had my wallet! We drove to the Baden bus office and retrieved my wallet with nothing missing from it. What an incredible answer to prayer! And since Chris likes to learn lessons from everything, I had to sit down and tell them the lessons I had learned. She added one to my list: Zip your purse! =-D

What I was thinking about through the whole thing was these two things:

*the incredible peace that I had throughout the entire situation and how
much God has changed me over the years
*the kindness of strangers. Would I have done as the tour guide or as the tour group?

What lessons can you learn when uncontrollable circumstances hit? How do your reactions effect those around you? And how do they reflect on your trust in God? Do you really trust Him?