Yes, it's long and no you probably won't care. Skim!

This corporate life isn’t what I thought it would be. My experience has always been with Christians and expats outside of the business arena. I’ve always been around people who were excited about a new person joining the group, who were eager to help, who wanted to know the stories of the new person. They gave gifts and suggestions and love for no reason aside from the fact that they knew what it was to be the new person and welcoming was part of the call.

In the business world I was just plopped down. I was given some things I needed and I was told who to call if I had a problem. But I wasn’t given any personal or social guidance. I wasn’t given many helpful hints; I wasn’t automatically welcomed into the group. I was just here. I was (am really) alone and lonely. It’s like being the new kid in school. It takes time to see where to fit in. I’ve always been shy (shut up! it’s true!) so it takes me longer.

I’ve decided to be a church person again. I went to a national, Methodist church last week. I wanted to find an international group. My boss is the only one I’ve found at work (so far) who is a church goer, and he told me about the church he goes to. He said he wouldn’t be there this week because he was traveling, but he was sure I could go with his wife, that she could pick me up and we could go together.

That sounded easy and safe so with all confidence I called his wife, whom I had never met. I asked her about the church and she sounded totally distracted and frazzled by her motherhood duties. She told me she wouldn’t be going to church this week because it was too difficult to get out alone with two children. She had a slight accent, so when she told me where the church met I was unsure of what she really said. It sounded like, “They meet at the Posh Regency Hotel, or Gateway Hotel.”
I said, “The Regency Hotel?”
She said, “Posh Regency”
I said, “Okay.”
I thought it sounded kind of uppity to put the word “posh” in the name of a hotel, but whatever.

She said, “You can find all the information in a book called In and Out of Bangalore.”
I thought I had seen that book and I knew I could also find it on the internet so I said, “Okay,” without asking any more questions.

I went to the bookstore, looked for the book to no avail.
I got on line, but forgot to look up the church.

I got up Sunday morning and wondered if I should try to find this place with such sketchy details.
Inventory:
I knew what time they meet.
I kind of knew the name of the meeting place.
I had no idea where that place was in relation to where I was.

I decided to press on. If I didn’t find the church I would at least find something.

I flagged down my first auto-rickshaw. I was trying to explain and at the same time figure out where I wanted to go according to the map. (Not so easy when the driver doesn’t speak English and I don’t even know what language he speaks.) Some friendly neighbors came along to help me out. They asked where I wanted to go, I told them. They told me I shouldn’t stay at that hotel, it was too expensive. I told them I was just visiting there, not staying. They talked to the driver, and whatever they said made him mad, I thought there was going to be a fist fight.

The driver got in his rickshaw and drove away and my friendly neighbors said, “You didn’t want him for a driver, he wanted to charge too much.”

They told me what to say to the next driver.

Okay.

I walked for a while before I found another empty auto-rick and that driver said, “Yes, yes madam.” I got in, he went one block and stopped. I guess he needed gas, which I noticed interestingly enough, comes in cylinders or tanks, like propane. It’s probably not propane, I have leery thoughts about riding around in an auto powered the same way a grill is, but that’s all together another issue.

He then told me that I needed to find another auto-rick because he wasn’t ready to take me after all.

So . . . I got in another one and he started driving. I noticed his meter didn’t work, but by that point I didn’t care. He drove me to the main street that I had said the hotel was on, but then he stopped so that I could ask directions. (He wasn’t asking because I’m sure he was driving illegally and it was the police that were standing on the corner dispensing information.)

The police officer said, “Don’t let him drive you, just walk; its three minutes down this street.” So, I over paid the driver who didn’t have a meter and started walking.

Having not been out of my neighborhood alone I started feeling like a tourist, walking around a strange city alone and clueless. At the intersection I asked, “Where is the Park (not Posh) Regency Hotel?” As, after consulting a map, this was my best guess about the name of the place I was headed toward.

He pointed it out to me. Well, that was a good sign, at least there actually was such a place as the “Park Regency Hotel.” I walked in and asked the desk man if there was a church there. He gave me a “ you crazy white women” look and said there is a church called St. (Somebody) down the street.

I said “Okay” and smiled and left. That was a bust. I had the wrong place after all.

I decided since I didn’t find the church to walk on down the street to see what else was around. Some shady little salesman tried to get me to go to a “Good store, open, open! Good prices for you!” I said, “no, no, No, NO!” And kept walking. I know that scam already. These guys on the street get commission to get people to go to certain stores. The commission comes from the hiked price the store owner sells the merchandise to the customer for. (I feel a little guilty about ending that sentence with “for” but we will all have to deal.)

As I walked on I saw a sign that said, “Taj Park Residency Gateway Hotel.” Well, wasn’t that at least part of what I scribbled on that paper when the boss’s wife had told me the name of the meeting place? I dug the paper out, I had forgotten all about that “Gateway” bit. I crossed the street to investigate. As I approached I could hear some Christians singing. I followed the singing and opened the door and I saw white people (It’s like the Sixth Sense, “I see white people.”)

I walked in and sat in the back. It was a smallish gathering maybe 35-40ish people. There were some Indians, more whities. They had new people introduce themselves. There were a lot of newbies maybe 1/3 of the group. I said, “Microsoft” and people looked at me like I had said a magic word. I wanted to tell them it wasn’t like that . . . I just quality control.

I saw a guy in the front of the group who looked vaguely familiar. I wondered if I knew him from somewhere, then forgetting how small some circles are, I dismissed the idea thinking, ‘He just looks like someone I used to know.’ Sitting next to Vaguely-familiar- guy was New-guy who introduced himself as new to “The Company” and very excited to be here. I knew what that meant, but wasn’t sure why it was being communicated in that way. I thought India was open.

After the service several people approached me, there seemed to be an unusual number of Texans in the room. I should have been suspicious, but I was thrown off by the Texas Instruments people.

Vaguely-familiar-guy came up and said, “Hey, do you remember me from Golden Gate?” That was it! I did remember! He and I had never really be friends or hung out, but I had seen him around and knew his name. Well, isn’t that funny? Six years later, around the world I wander into random church “A” and see someone I met in CA! He talked to me in low tones about “The Company” and his work.

I told him I knew “The Company” was in town on account of the Hospital, but I didn’t know how many there were and I couldn’t figure out how to find them. He said, “Let me introduce you to my co-worker!”

When he said her name, I thought, ‘I’ve heard that name before, I think, but maybe not.’
(Why do I doubt?!)
She was Friendly and Funny and suggested we all go to lunch (VF-guy and New- guy, she and I.)

We went to a Chinese place and I wondered if VF-guy’s coworker had ever worked in The Ivory Coast. Strange thing to wonder of someone you just met perhaps, but once, way back when . . . I had traveled far and long from Ft. Myers, FL to San Antonio, TX to a conference where someone quite like this lady had worn red suspenders and ridden a unicycle into a conference center full of screaming teenaged girls. That Unicycle rider had worked in Ivory Coast. I had to ask.

She said, “That was me! I can’t believe it!” She told the story of the unicycle and the conference and the suspenders . . . how funny, I think she drew a palm tree on my program one night back in 1990.

We talked the rest of the day about security and The Company and my company and why Microsoft was a magic word. We went to a prayer service for a community center for children with unstable family lives. (Those babies were so precious.) I’m sure I’ll be back there. She introduced me to more Company people and when we spoke the other magic word “Journeyman” I was at once included in the group story.

And after years of thinking I couldn’t be involved in that group ever again, I thought, ‘Maybe I could, maybe in a different way from last time.’

This is a time for healing after all.

God is good. I have a broken past but a healing future.