One teenager in the church here is starting to learn how to drive, so I thought that it was time that I learned how to drive here too.  Frank and I both got our Australian drivers licenses last month.   We finished our work one day about 5:00 p.m., so I said let’s take a drive and I’ll do the driving and see if I know the way all by myself to the church.  Frank said, “That’s a great idea.”

    After familiarizing myself with all of the knobs and handles on our vehicle, I was ready to go.  Frank, the eager and complying teacher, told me exactly how to back-up without hitting the mailbox or any trees.  Sometimes teaching is appreciated and sometimes it isn’t.  Like when he showed me the key ring and said, “You do know about the automatic hit buttons for the lock and the unlock, don’t you?”  Okay, I wasn’t in the jungle of Papua New Guinea any longer than him, but it was kind of him to make sure that I knew about this modern technology.

    We headed out into the neighborhoods and he said, “Do you feel the bumps?”  I said, “Yeah.”  He said, “That’s because you’re driving too far to the left and hitting all the edge bumps.”  So I tried to steer the car more to the center line.  My problem is that there isn’t a median in a lot of places and it seemed like the cars going the other direction were only one inch from me.

    Things were basically going okay though until we got down to the bigger main roads and suddenly we realized that we made a mistake of my learning to drive when it was rush hour traffic and the sun was setting and in our eyes.  People started tail-gating and we were pressed in by other cars.  People were getting aggravated at my “unsure” driving skills and after a few dirty looks from others, I got super nervous and panicked. My heart was racing, I had cold sweats, and my hands were shaking.  I cried out, “I can’t do this and I don’t want to drive anymore!  I don’t know my way around Australia and I never did have good depth perception, so just forget it!  I’m not young and brave anymore, so God must not want me to drive in other countries.”

    At that point though, there was no where to pull over.  I “had” to keep going with the flow of traffic.  Frank remained calm and was my cheerleader saying to just ignore the other drivers and that I could do it.  Though later he told me that he was nervous that I was going to hit these concrete things on the left because I kept inching over that direction.  He would nonchalantly give the steering wheel a little push to the right now and then.

    I lost track of how many times I hit the windshield wiper handle instead of the turn signal (since they are on opposite sides) especially when I was panicking.  Frank kept up his serenity and his teaching and said things like, “Okay turn on your left turn signal and get in the left lane because we are going to go left here.”  Then he would reach over and turn off the windshield wiper as I found the turn signal on the right-hand side of the steering wheel.  He also meticulously let me know what each speed limit sign said.  I guess in case he thought I couldn’t see them, or maybe it was really because he thought that if he kept talking calmly it would keep me calm.

    There were two times though when “he” panicked.  Once while I was turning, he said, “WAIT, WAIT, there’s a red car coming!”   I told him that I saw it.  So he asked, “Then why did you let the car roll?”  Well, I was getting ready to go, but wasn’t quite ready to go.  ---Did I mention there’s a like/dislike thing about anyone trying to teach and point out things.  The other incident was after we got out on the country roads, I started feeling more confident and was even starting to have conversation about other things.  We came to another turn and all of a sudden I heard, “LEFT, LEFT-SIDE of the road!”  Whew!  After I got into the left lane instead of the right, he proceeded to tell me,  “When I’m driving in Australia, I concentrate to make sure I don’t drive on the right-hand side of the road like in America.”  Okay...I’m not to the point yet of being able to talk and drive at the same time.  Probably chew bubble gum either.

    Well anyway, the “great idea” turned into a “great hairy adventure,” and we were only gone for 35 minutes.
     A friend in Christ,
    Sister Cyd James