One of Those Days
Today was “one of those days“. I was late getting out of the house to get things prepared for the girls Bible Study tonight. I had a good reason to be late as I had a last minute important phone call that ended up being a counseling phone call. I was glad that I was home to help this one person out.
BUT, by the time I go to the store on the other end of town (my first stop), I wanted to buy crackers to go with the soup I was preparing for girls study. I stood there and waited patiently for the person in front of me to finish. She was almost done when I started realizing something was wrong. What was I missing? Hmmm, I had my packet which had things I needed for the study, I had..wait…no..I didn’t have my purse! That means I had no money! That means I won’t be able to buy the crackers, potatoes, milk, etc. that I needed to prepare dinner for tonight. Hmmm…well, I’ll go and call one of the missionaries, see if I can borrow a little money from them. Thankfully I had not ordered the crackers yet, I would have felt REALLY foolish! (oh sure I could have turned around and gone home, but I live across the tracks which is about a 15 min public transportation ride, plus about a 7 minute walk to my house ONE WAY..nope…we’ll make do with whatever happens). Ok..so I went on to where we have the girls study. One of the girls is staying at the house while the missionaries are on furlough and after hearing my story said “Oh, here, I have money, go buy what you need!” WOW, thanks God! You provided so fast.
So, the evening went on. She and I had a good time of fellowship while we prepared dinner for the girls. The study went well and everyone ate and was happy.
Myself and another missionary left after the study and were on our way home. We hit a crossroad (she was going one way and I was going another) so we said goodbye and see you later. The path I took was across from my normal path, but it was on a sidewalk (more or less) and I thought that I would just stay there instead of crossing back to my normal path. Well, this path took me past a construction site for a new apartment building. No big deal usually, but this time three or four dogs came out and started barking and nipping at my heels. I looked at them and thought, whatever, dogs are always barking and following you. But this time, these dogs were serious! One of them (two or three were small dogs, not much bigger than a small poodle, the other one, the leader was bigger than a poodle type dog, but not a HUGE dog, not big like a Labrador), was very serious. The bigger dog was the one who came out of the construction site first, barking and nipping at my heels, the others followed. The bigger dog then BIT ME on my leg! I was shocked (I’d never been bit by a dog before and have never really been afraid of dogs). As he bit me I screamed, not loud, more of a screech, and at the same time I thought “what do I do? I know what to do when a bear attacks you but not when a dog attacks you.” He kept barking and wanting to bite me again, (but thankfully he didn’t). I started swinging my bag at him (I wanted to say “Ot vahl lee-which is Russian slang for “get away from me” but I thought, he’s a dog, not a person, that won’t work on dogs), I continued screeching and whimpering and running. Finally they all dropped back after about a minute chase. I walked a few paces and then stopped to look at the damage, blood, bite mark, skin broken. I am thinking, when did I have my last tetanus shot? What made me more frustrated than getting bit, was that there were all these people around and NO ONE DID ANYTHING. I passed a couple right after getting bit and they said NOTHING! They just looked at me with concern in their eyes. I wanted to scream at them, HELLO!!! I JUST GOT BIT! COULD YOU MAYBE ASK IF I AM OK??!!!!! Ahhhh, the joys of living in Ukraine. No one ever gets involved in another person’s business.
I got home fine, shaken up, but fine, and surveyed the damage. Moderate bite, teeth marks, bruise, and swelling, could have been worse. I checked my shot records, I’m ok Praise God! So I cleaned the wound and put a bandage over it.
Today was “one of those days”, but I know the Lord was watching out for me, it could have been worse!
