So Trinka, what WERE you doing at the Lansing police station at that hour of the night?

Funny you should think to ask!

About 7:30 last night I got a call that a girl from church whose parents are out of the country right now had rolled her pickup on the other side of Lansing.

The truck was totaled. She was OK (though I'm sure very sore this morning). The police officer had taken her to the downtown police station to wait for a someone to pick her up.

I volunteered, and M. rode along with me.

We found the station OK, and she was (apparently) the only one in the building. No cars in the parking lot ... no police officers evident ... just her sitting there behind a locked door waiting for someone with a working vehicle.

When things got interesting was when we tried to find her truck, so she could retrieve her belongings.

We had the name of the towing company, but no address. No Lansing map. No GPS (though there was one in her parents' car that we were immediately wishing we'd grabbed to bring alone!)

The girl at the pizza place next to the police station knew where the towing company was, and gave us directions ... which .... in trying to get us to Martin Luther King Drive, neglected to mention that it ran parallel to the road we were on, and hence, no matter how far we drove, we would never find it.

The drunk at the liquor store assured us that, if we just kept driving, we would, eventually, come to M.L.K.

We drive and drive and drive

neighborhood continues to look unsavory

We stopped at a light, hoping to grab some more directions, and a police officer pulled up next to us.

We asked him where M.L.K. was, and he asked us to pull over, and he'd give us directions.

This is where we found out it was parallel to, and about a quarter mile from, the road we were on (Cedar.)

A side note - he was a K-9 officer, and let us meet his dog. That was so cool. I've always found it fascinating how much those animals can learn. She was a beautiful German shepherd.

When we finally found M.L.K., and the towing company, there were, to our amazement, actually people there. So the yard was unlocked, and we were able to get her things.

The trip home was relatively uneventful, except for the story of the semi forcing her off the road.

We got her home and tucked in by about 11:30.

And as I pulled into her driveway, I was just awed at how God's goodness was demonstrated in the whole thing. So much could have gone terribly wrong.

The truck was a terrible mess. It either didn't have airbags, or they didn't work, because they hadn't triggered. Rolling at 70 mph, she could have been killed so easily, or else badly hurt.

God protected her from anything worse than the normal post-accident aches and pains.

She had her cell phone with her, and it was working, so she could find one of us to help her.

My car had been out of comission earlier yesterday with a dead battery. I had discovered it, and it was charged again in time to be available when she called. (P.S. -- leaving your lights on is NOT conducive to good battery health)

We were led to people who sent us in the (generally) right direction to find the truck. Really ... how could a person expect random (occasionally inebriated) strangers to know the location of a specific towing company in a city like that?

For whatever reason, she had some important documents in the truck. We were able to find them. They hadn't been stolen or lost.

So ... her parents continue on happily serving the Lord for two weeks in Africa, and hopefully won't realize until they get home how differently their trip could have ended.

On the exercise front - this morning, I got up and tried the first day of the running schedule. Still not committing, but interested ...!

Hey - did I mention I got to meet a police dog? (I'm so easily pleased) :)