I once got lost in Amman, Jordan. It probably wasn’t my brightest moment, but ended up being a life-changing moment. I was living in Jerusalem at the time for school and my class traveled to Jordan for the weekend to visit ancient sites such as Petra. One of the nights we stayed in Amman, which offered us an evening to explore the city as we wished.
Before we arrived at the hotel, we were informed by one of our guides that the largest Starbucks in the Middle East had been built in the city. Suffice to say, after months away from home, as lame as it was to visit a Starbucks when visiting such an amazing place, we desired something familiar.
About a twenty of us decided to visit this must-see site and proceeded to the front desk to figure out how. We had no idea where our own hotel was in this city let alone where the Starbucks was. The generous front desk employee called us all taxis and explained to them in Arabic exactly where to take us.
The ride itself was pretty uneventful as the driver didn’t speak any English and we didn’t have any Arabic speakers in the car, but it was fascinating to see a new city even though I had no idea where I was going. Then, all of the sudden right in front of us, there it was. The largest Starbucks in the Middle East. It was completely out of place but we didn’t care. It was a taste of home!
We all ordered the exact same drinks we would at any Starbucks in America and spent a couple of hours talking and laughing about this crazy adventure we were on. As the night went on, groups of students left to head back to the hotel, but I was having way too much fun to turn in for the night. We stuck around for a couple more hours, but when they informed us that they would soon be closing, our night came to an end.
The six or so of us who had stayed behind wandered outside to flag down a taxi that would take us back to the hotel. Modeled after what we had seen in any movie where somebody calls a taxi, one of us stood at the edge of the street and any time a taxi came by, we gave them a clear wave, and maybe a whistle, to stop and pick us up.
As the first couple of taxi’s passed without even considering touching the breaks, we figured we were just unlucky and that they either had not seen us or already had passengers. After about fifteen minutes or so of taxis blowing right past us, however, I started to have my first sense that something wasn’t right.
While one of our classmates tried to see if any of the Starbucks employees that were closing up the shop might be able to help (they couldn’t), we finally flagged down a driver. He pulled up to the curb, rolled down the passenger window, and looked at us expectantly. “We need a ride back to our hotel,” we said. He just stared at us. “It’s called (a name I don’t remember). Can you take us there?” we asked. He continued to stare, said something in Arabic, and then simply drove off. This made us realize that our first mistake was not paying attention to the fact that none of the Arabic-speaking students had stayed with us.
This same drill went on for what seemed like hours all the while my sense of anxiety kept increasing. We were either ignored by the taxi drivers or received blank stares from those that did stop because they either didn’t speak any English or had no idea where our hotel was. We knew the name but had expected the drivers to know how to get there. Another big mistake.
I was becoming increasingly nervous because I realized that there was a real possibility that we weren’t going to make it back to the hotel for many hours, if at all. We had no idea where we were, we had no idea where our hotel was, and we had no idea how to communicate any of this to anyone.
Fear comes from many places but I think the stories we hear, especially in the media, shape us to fear people who are different than we are.
Besides the awful prospect of having to stand outside all night hoping to be rescued in the morning, I remembered that before going to Jordan, the United States State Department website had warned tourists to be careful in cities such as Amman, especially at night, because people had been known to kidnap Americans for ransom. It was like a perfect storm for having my mug shot wind up on the news with pundits asking how in the world these kids were taken and nobody has any idea where they are or why they were in such a position to begin with.
So we stood there. We continued our fruitless efforts for who knows how long when all of the sudden some teenagers came walking down the street, sized us up, and approached. As the got closer, one of them asked us in English as plain as day, “What are you doing?”
“We are trying to get a taxi back to our hotel, but haven’t had any luck all night,” we explained.
“Yeah, you are never going to catch a cab here. This isn’t a normal stop for them” one of the teens shared. “Where are you trying to go?”
We told them the name of our hotel but they, like the taxi drivers, had no idea where that was. They had some ideas about general areas of the city it might be but knew nothing specific.
“Let us help,” they offered. One of the guys went into the street and convinced a driver to pull over. He explained the situation in Arabic to him, but received the same response we had from multiple drivers already. He would take us where we wanted to go but had no idea where exactly that was.
“Let’s just get in and figure it out,” one of the teens offered. This felt like an odd offer but we literally had no other options so we jumped in. In the meantime, the other teens had helped to get a second taxi so that everyone could get off the streets and hopefully start moving toward the hotel.
Our new friends suggested a general direction for the driver to head and started calling all of their friends to see if anyone had any idea where our hotel was. Mixing English and Arabic together, the kids ran their operation talking back and forth between multiple phones and the driver. After a few phone calls, they finally reached someone who was able to give us directions. A few minutes later, we pulled up to the front doors of the hotel we had left so many hours before.
Relieved that we were back in a familiar place, I asked our rescuers what we owed for the ride. I can still hear their answer as if they spoke the words to me today. “You don’t owe anything. When we are in America, you can cover our ride.” I was blown away. In that instant something changed inside of me. The entire experience living in the Middle East had started an internal shift, but this one sentence finally pushed me over the edge. I thanked them and walked into the hotel with my friends to grab a few hours of sleep.
I was back at the hotel but I wasn’t the same man who had left hours before. The man who left the hotel to go to Starbucks never really came back. He was lost for good. But that turned out to be a really good thing. When I initially told family and friends that I was moving to the Middle East, I got a lot of concerned looks and expressions of fear in return. Some people probably thought I was crazy and others thought they would never see me again. I was even beginning to allow fear to overwhelm me while I stood on that curb wondering what in the world was going to happen.
What if we allowed our diversity to make us stronger as we teach one another and explore new horizons?
This fear comes from many places but I think the stories we hear, especially in the media, shape us to fear people who are different than we are. What I realized during the course of my time in the Middle East, and on this night especially, is that people everywhere are just people. They all have names, faces, stories, desires, and beliefs. This isn’t to say that there aren’t people who out there who do bad things. There certainly are. But they aren’t the majority. They aren’t even a large minority. I learned that night, when I was in one of the most vulnerable positions in my life that there are good, loving, amazing, beautiful people that come from all areas of the world. They have many different names and faces and most of them don’t look anything like me.
I wonder what our world might look like if we looked at one another and saw potential guided by love rather skepticism dictated by fear. What if we allowed our diversity to make us stronger as we teach one another and explore new horizons? What if more and more people decided to start interactions with the fact that we are all made in the image of God rather than stories meant to divide us?
Who knows what might happen when you get in the taxi? It’s true that something bad could happen. But it’s also true, and I believe much more likely, that you might just discover a new path and a new way of seeing life. You might even discover new opportunities to share Jesus. It might take getting lost in Amman in the middle of the night, but maybe getting lost is one of the most important things we can do. Maybe we need to get lost for good so that we can find ourselves and each other anew.
If you would like to hear Erin and I discuss this story, you can check out the podcast episode at the links below.
