Kind People and Small Miracles

A blog post by Trish Irvine, Spring 2010

Her name, she said, was Kirsten. To me, she will be the lady who saved my ten-day trip from beginning in sorrow. Exceedingly kind, Kirsten guided a group of us when we were at a foreign train station in the middle of the night. Perhaps some explanation is necessary.

This past week I was able to have ten days off from classes and travel Europe. Due to the length of time, my plans were to go to Fátima, Portugal and Madrid, Spain. Our plans weren’t foolproof, however. Through a mixture of nearly every form of land transportation, we plotted our course to Fátima. A few of our train transitions included intervals with less than ten minutes. The second transition with about eight minutes proved to be our downfall. We arrived to the station after our train had already departed. We needed to get to Munich; however, 4 am was the next train headed to Munich from our train station. With our original train leaving from Munich at 3:15 am and a plane leaving from Paris in the early afternoon, we were growing worried that Fátima would turn out to be just a nice idea in the end.

Here is where Kirsten enters the picture. She had been on the train with us before and had also missed her train to Munich. Although she didn’t seem worried to get to Munich soon, she became very helpful when we lamented that we had a plane leaving from Paris the next day. Thankfully, she was fluent in both German and English. Kirsten bargained with the taxi drivers for us, and although they didn’t really lower their prices, it was nice to have a “grown-up” dealing with them.

It was strange how implicitly I trusted her. She was beautiful and kind. To me, she was the bodily form of one of our guardian angels. The difficulty of our situation didn’t need to concern her, but she began to help us right away. When we told her the prices for the taxi were more than we could afford, she bargained again with the drivers. She called her boyfriend to see if there was any other way for us to get to Munich that night. In the end, when we decided to take the taxis, she traveled with us. We slept in the back of the taxi and she sat in the front with the driver, talking to him in German. For some reason, it seemed comforting to have her there with us. Her very presence was calming. Even the simplest things seemed to be sweet—as we stopped at a gas station for gas, she said “About ten minutes, girls” and that itself was calming.

When we got to the train station, I couldn’t resist my desire to give this kind lady a hug. For hours afterwards, we gushed about how heaven-sent she had been, how perfectly she helped us, how much God had answered our prayers before we even prayed them. She maybe didn’t even think she did something that wonderful, but her aid deeply impressed us.

This incident on its own would have been wonderful. Nevertheless, the rest of the trip was filled with random miracles and kind people. There were the train conductors on our way to Paris who didn’t kick us off when we didn’t have our seat reservations, the conductor on the way to Fátima who allowed us to purchase our seat reservation on the train, and the very kind man who drove us the 15 miles from the Fátima train station to the city of Fátima when there were no taxis or busses at 9 pm at night. Those helps were just on the way to Fátima: we also were helped by the kind receptionist at our hotel; one of the girls I was traveling with found her brother just when she was about to give up; in Madrid we wanted to go to Mass so we found a random church and knelt down to pray to discover a Mass started a couple minutes later; and we worked with the beautiful Missionaries of Charity who showed us the beauty of love.

The hostels we stayed at were fairly nice and the workers also kind. On my way back to Fátima for Easter I nearly hugged the Madrid ticket salesman who spoke English to me. The second hotel in Fátima was helpful and I found a shopkeeper who would bargain with me. The entire trip I encountered little blessings. At the time, finding an open compartment for the 4 ½ hour portion of our train ride seemed like a great blessing. Prayers were continually answered and blessings bestowed before I even had the chance to think of praying for them.

In a way, it was because I was entering so deeply in and striving to rely on God in all things that the little blessings seemed so great and important. Yet everyday I encounter blessings. As I write this, I am soaking in the vision of sunshine outside my window and the delightful sound of birds twittering and hailing the arrival of spring. Sometimes I have to pause and remember that I am living in a foreign country and how that in itself is a great gift. After experiencing the kindness of so many people in a variety of countries and languages, it makes me want to randomly help others as well. Perhaps in helping others it will lead me to a greater understanding of the beauty of serving people. “Entrust your works to the Lord, and your plans will succeed.” (Proverbs 16:3)—this past trip showed me the truth of this verse.

Wants and Needs

Perhaps the most recurring theme of my semester thus far has been wants versus needs. Or, better put – things I think I need versus things I actually need.

Traveling has a way of putting that sort of thing in perspective: you discover the essentials and your own creativity in obtaining them. You learn to separate the things you need – like sleep – from the things you don’t – like a bed.

One could argue, for example, that the litmus test for how badly you actually need a restroom comes when you see the “service charge” machine blocking the door. You stop and evaluate: a Euro, a Euro-fifty? Hmm, that’s a half of a meal or better yet – a whole loaf of bread for tomorrow’s breakfast, lunch, and dinner. How often one finds that one did not really need to go that bad!

You learn the tricks, of course: that McDonald’s doesn’t charge for restrooms, that a scarf makes a fantastic pillow, that (as a friend of mine warned me before I came) travel-sized Febreeze is your best friend, that chewing gum can make you feel full…and all those remarkable insights that come with the challenge of traveling.

Returning from ten-day break, for example, my friends and I spent two consecutive nights sleeping in airports. Airports are not bad--when they’re heated, that is. But you learn: you find the warmest hand drier in the bathroom and spend a fair amount of time underneath it. You buy the cheapest, hottest drink (usually tea) and just hold it. You walk around. A lot. You turn the scarf that was a pillow into a blanket and master what my friends dubbed “yoga sleep” – any number of ridiculous positions that manage to conserve body heat.

It’s incredible what you get used to and how quickly you get used to it. Like cold showers, or the kind (in some hostels) that shut off randomly. You perfect the one-minute shower (my family should be happy to read that) simple to avoid having shampoo left in your hair all day.

Yet I do believe that these are some of the most formative situations I have encountered. It takes a sense of humor, an attitude of humility, and a disposition toward simplicity to make it back to the Kartause each Sunday and be able to say: “That trip was a blessing and I was changed for the better by it.”

Blog post written by Cara Weiss, Fall 09 Gaming Student