This is the case of the strange Moroccan stoplight. We have been travelling in Europe for four months and during these last few weeks in Europe, we have had several meetings in southern Spain. On Sunday night, we travelled to Gibraltar and then the next morning we boarded a ferry for Morocco on the continent of Africa. Now, everyone else may not be as geographically challenged as I was, but I never realized until we were planning this trip, how close southern Spain is to the continent of Africa. After church on Sunday night in Gibraltar, we saw the lights of Africa in the distance, and when we got on the ferry, it was just a 40 minute ferry ride before we disembarked in a whole different world in Africa.
We knew all along that a trip into Africa, and into Morocco in particular, would possibly be both very challenging and very rewarding. Since Morocco is listed as one of the top ten countries for persecution of Christians, we already had a clue ahead of time of what they thought about us, so we were under no delusions, but now that we are back out of Morocco after three full and exciting days, I can honestly say that I am very glad to be out of Morocco, and I am very glad I went to Morocco. With all this said, perhaps you will more easily understand the case of the strange Moroccan stoplight.
During our time in Morocco, we noticed that their
officers of the law seemed to hang around everywhere quite a bit, but they never seemed to pay much attention to us other than to take note of who was entering the church where Rick was speaking (it was supposed to be only foreigners--but one very brave Moroccan made it in toward the end of the meeting). We drove for three days in Morocco with Rick speaking in three different locations. During our time on the highways, we noticed that these vigilant officers would randomly appear on different sides of the highway quite unexpectedly and dutifully pull over apparently non-law abiding citizens. Nothing seemed to be out of order until we approached the capitol city of Rabat for the third and final time during our stay in Morocco. We were moving along with the traffic at about 45 miles per hour as everyone around us was when we noticed a stoplight up ahead. It was green as we approached so we dutifully prepared to proceed as we have done since the day we first learned how stop lights operate. This is where we learned about the oddities of Moroccan stoplights.... Just as we were ready to proceed through the intersection with the other cars in the other lanes beside us, the light suddenly and inexplicably turned red. We were shocked, but we were already entering the intersection and there was no way either we or the other vehicles could stop so we just sailed through. At that perfectly timed moment, the aforesaid vigilant officer was standing ready ahead of time to motion us to the side of the road.
Now with all the commotion of Moroccan roads going on around us, we quickly pulled over, but needless to say, we were a little stunned. Neither Rick or I ever run red lights, and we didn't see how such a thing could happen as a stoplight turning red instantly. The friendly officer came over and asked for Rick's license and chuckled merrily about how he didn't know if he could interpret it. Rick wasn't chuckling. Especially when the dutiful officer told him just a few chuckles later how much the fine would be. (that's a sentence fragment I know, but it gives the effect I want to express)...rules don't matter right now it appears.
Rick tried to explain, but the officer was unmoved--it was all our fault because we were going too fast. Just then, noticing what was happening a little clearer, I turned and looked where the officer had been standing, and saw his stoplight switching station. Now, I had learned earlier on in our stay in Morocco, that the government there has a very wonderful policy in effect in their country. That is, King Mohammed VI, Islam, Mohammed, and everything even remotely related to them, are and always will be perfect in every way and if you think otherwise and are smart enough to say so, they will arrange an extended visa and free lodging to go with it. (A Moroccan recently found this out when he noted in the newspaper that the King didn't seem to be healthy).
Now, we have prayed for a lot of free lodging on this trip, but considering the fact that our ferry was leaving later that evening, I decided that I didn't want to take advantage of their free lodging offer by opening my mouth to enlighten the officer to the criminality of his stoplight switching station, so I just started thinking some choice thoughts about this dutiful officer.
He saw that we weren't going to pay him this huge fine so he told us that we would have to pay this fine when we got to customs in a few hours. He took our customs paper so he could kindly arrange the details for us, and we proceeded on our way. I don't know all of God's reasons for sending us on this trip, but it seems that I am having a lot of practice in holding my tongue, so maybe I am going to need this practice later because I really wanted to say, "Wait a second before we go...my little boys back there in the van are really into gadgets and neat little inventions, and I'm wondering if you would be interested in just taking them over to your little light switching station and demonstrate how it works? I mean, if I have too, I could slip you a nice little sum--but you probably don't know what I mean by that, do you?"
We travelled on for a couple of hours to the customs office praying that God would either hinder the officer's message getting though or would work in some other way to accomplish His plan. When we got to customs, Rick went in to have his form stamped and the officer never even noticed that we had to pay this fine. We asked no questions and actually kept the form which I thought was supposed to be turned in. We'll put it in a nice little scrap book of Morocco to show how God is bigger than any of Satan's devices. This was just another example of how everything is really under God's control. We think we have a difficult situation, but all situations are the same to God. Nothing is big or small to Him because the word "problem" is not in his vocabulary. God has no problems--He only has perfect solutions to the situations we find ourselves in!
We knew all along that a trip into Africa, and into Morocco in particular, would possibly be both very challenging and very rewarding. Since Morocco is listed as one of the top ten countries for persecution of Christians, we already had a clue ahead of time of what they thought about us, so we were under no delusions, but now that we are back out of Morocco after three full and exciting days, I can honestly say that I am very glad to be out of Morocco, and I am very glad I went to Morocco. With all this said, perhaps you will more easily understand the case of the strange Moroccan stoplight.
During our time in Morocco, we noticed that their
officers of the law seemed to hang around everywhere quite a bit, but they never seemed to pay much attention to us other than to take note of who was entering the church where Rick was speaking (it was supposed to be only foreigners--but one very brave Moroccan made it in toward the end of the meeting). We drove for three days in Morocco with Rick speaking in three different locations. During our time on the highways, we noticed that these vigilant officers would randomly appear on different sides of the highway quite unexpectedly and dutifully pull over apparently non-law abiding citizens. Nothing seemed to be out of order until we approached the capitol city of Rabat for the third and final time during our stay in Morocco. We were moving along with the traffic at about 45 miles per hour as everyone around us was when we noticed a stoplight up ahead. It was green as we approached so we dutifully prepared to proceed as we have done since the day we first learned how stop lights operate. This is where we learned about the oddities of Moroccan stoplights.... Just as we were ready to proceed through the intersection with the other cars in the other lanes beside us, the light suddenly and inexplicably turned red. We were shocked, but we were already entering the intersection and there was no way either we or the other vehicles could stop so we just sailed through. At that perfectly timed moment, the aforesaid vigilant officer was standing ready ahead of time to motion us to the side of the road.
Now with all the commotion of Moroccan roads going on around us, we quickly pulled over, but needless to say, we were a little stunned. Neither Rick or I ever run red lights, and we didn't see how such a thing could happen as a stoplight turning red instantly. The friendly officer came over and asked for Rick's license and chuckled merrily about how he didn't know if he could interpret it. Rick wasn't chuckling. Especially when the dutiful officer told him just a few chuckles later how much the fine would be. (that's a sentence fragment I know, but it gives the effect I want to express)...rules don't matter right now it appears.
Rick tried to explain, but the officer was unmoved--it was all our fault because we were going too fast. Just then, noticing what was happening a little clearer, I turned and looked where the officer had been standing, and saw his stoplight switching station. Now, I had learned earlier on in our stay in Morocco, that the government there has a very wonderful policy in effect in their country. That is, King Mohammed VI, Islam, Mohammed, and everything even remotely related to them, are and always will be perfect in every way and if you think otherwise and are smart enough to say so, they will arrange an extended visa and free lodging to go with it. (A Moroccan recently found this out when he noted in the newspaper that the King didn't seem to be healthy).
Now, we have prayed for a lot of free lodging on this trip, but considering the fact that our ferry was leaving later that evening, I decided that I didn't want to take advantage of their free lodging offer by opening my mouth to enlighten the officer to the criminality of his stoplight switching station, so I just started thinking some choice thoughts about this dutiful officer.
He saw that we weren't going to pay him this huge fine so he told us that we would have to pay this fine when we got to customs in a few hours. He took our customs paper so he could kindly arrange the details for us, and we proceeded on our way. I don't know all of God's reasons for sending us on this trip, but it seems that I am having a lot of practice in holding my tongue, so maybe I am going to need this practice later because I really wanted to say, "Wait a second before we go...my little boys back there in the van are really into gadgets and neat little inventions, and I'm wondering if you would be interested in just taking them over to your little light switching station and demonstrate how it works? I mean, if I have too, I could slip you a nice little sum--but you probably don't know what I mean by that, do you?"
We travelled on for a couple of hours to the customs office praying that God would either hinder the officer's message getting though or would work in some other way to accomplish His plan. When we got to customs, Rick went in to have his form stamped and the officer never even noticed that we had to pay this fine. We asked no questions and actually kept the form which I thought was supposed to be turned in. We'll put it in a nice little scrap book of Morocco to show how God is bigger than any of Satan's devices. This was just another example of how everything is really under God's control. We think we have a difficult situation, but all situations are the same to God. Nothing is big or small to Him because the word "problem" is not in his vocabulary. God has no problems--He only has perfect solutions to the situations we find ourselves in!
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