Listening 20 – Listen for specific words

I was on a mission trip in the country of Haiti. We had just our business in the city of Port-au-Prince, and we were about to head out to the city of Port-de-Paix. It was a long trip – I it took us about 12 hours to go from Port-au-Prince to Port-de-Paix. It was a very, very bumpy trip, and we were probably about 15 minutes into this trip – and of course, that’s when it dawned on me that I needed to use the restroom.

Well, after about another fifteen minutes, we were getting further and further away from the city, and my need to use the restroom was only greater. Eventually I got to a point where I knew that I would NOT be able to wait until we in Port-de-Paix 12 hours later – so I kept saying that I needed to stop and use the restroom.

My youth coach, Tangi, said “Well, I’m sorry, but there’s along the way, and we can’t afford to stop, we have to keep our schedule.” Well, this just made it all the – there was no way that I was going to be able to hold this for twelve hours.

The stars aligned – we came across a restaurant out in the middle of nowhere, and I moved out of that van than anything I had ever seen. And before I knew it, I was in the restaurant, in the bathroom, and on the toilet.

Now, this was a single bathroom; there was only one stall. And once I caught my , I was thanking God so hard and so much for providing this miracle. There was nothing more in my life at that moment, or that I could ever recall – but that elation would not last very long. Eventually, I realized that it was time to go – and I reached for the toilet paper. But much to my , I realized there was no toilet paper. There was not even a cardboard hinting that there was once toilet paper.

As I said, there was no other stalls in the bathroom, and my began to race – what was I going to do? What am I going to do? I peeked out of the stall to see if there was any hand towels by the sink, and from what I , this bathroom had not been stocked in quite some time.

I began going through my options – what can I possibly do here? And then it dawned on me that the only thing that I could do was to use my shirt. I to myself, “I have no other options, but… if I use my shirt, what is it going to look like when I walk out of the restaurant without my shirt? They’ll at me; I will never, ever live down the fact that I used my shirt.”

But I couldn’t sit in there forever – so after a time I took a deep breath and I began to take my shirt off. Well, before I even had it off, there was a knock at the door and I was startled. The in my voice probably showed through my question: “Who is it?”

A voice answered, “Hey Chris, it’s Frank. Are you okay, buddy? You’ve been in there a while.” I replied “Yes, yes, I’m fine – just a few more minutes.” I wasn’t sure if I was ready to tell him about my predicament. Well, he came in and he said, “We thought you might need this.” I cracked the stall to the bathroom, and from around the corner I saw a nice, new, roll of toilet paper! It was even more beautiful than the toilet I had found only a short time before.

I was so that my friend knew of my need, and I know my shirt is grateful. I don’t know what happened to it, but I know it didn’t get left in the in a bathroom in Haiti.