Driving Lessons

Today I did something that I haven't done in 25 years: I had driving lessons.

We are giving up our old faithful blue VW van, which will be used at the Hope House homeless day center. In its place we will have a silver Citroen minivan, which is just as old as the van, but in much nicer shape. The only problem is that it has a manual transmission (like 95% of the cars in Estonia).

Like most Americans, I have never in my life driven a standard shift vehicle. The closest I came was when I was 19 and my brother Tom bought a Ford Fiesta from Ed Mulinax Ford ("he's a reputable dealer," my brother thought). He really wanted to teach me how to drive it, so we went on the streets of Lorain, Ohio, where he patiently tried to show me how it was done. We were at one streetlight where I had to turn left, and I stalled out again and again, and ended up sitting there through five or six light change cycles. After that, I gave up on driving a standard.

But now I have no choice. Today one of the regional employees, Toivo, took me out to show me how to drive the van. He speaks about as much English as I do Estonian, so it was a very funny scene. I kept having problems with getting the car moving. I would start it with no problem, but once I tried to move forward, I would keep stalling. I would either let out the clutch too soon, or not give it enough gas. I tried again and again and kept stalling. It was so frustrating. I finally got it moving, and after that things went easily. Shifting from second to third to fourth gears went easily, and I felt I had the hang of it with no issues. Backing up didn't even go so badly, although I did stall a few times. But each time I had to come to a complete stop, I had the same issue getting started all over again. It's just going to take practice until I get it right. I plan to go out again tomorrow by myself to work on it some more. I hope to be good enough at it that by Monday I can give up the blue van.

Please keep this in prayer. It is just one more thing to my long list of adaptation that, even after two years, I am having to make. But it doesn't take away the joy of being here.
--Tim