You think today's politicians are weird? My life is weird. This afternoon I was cleaning cat poop off of the flat Sunday School room roof where neighbor cats like to do their dirty business. I suspect it hasn't been cleaned in the 20 years since our house was built. One has to climb up with a ladder and one can't see it easily, so I can understand why it's not been cleaned before. When I was nearly done sweeping up enought to fill a five-gallon bucket I got a call from a number I didn't recognize. I usually don't answer such calls, but I'm expecting an important call from the municipality, so I answered it. It turned out to be Juan*, a man who has been coming to church lately. He came to church late on Sunday because he had been fighting with his half-siblings about who owns their house and the police had to break it up. Today he called saying he was locked up at the police station along with his half-siblings and he was hungry. Could I buy him 6 bananas, a kg of oranges and two daily specials from a restaurant? I pointed out to Juan that all the restaurants in our town were closed by 4:30 pm, but I could still bring him the fruit and we'd find him some food. Mary Beth quickly cooked him up some chicken to put with our leftover rice and cornbread and we walked to the police station. "Hi. We hear you have Juan locked up and we brought him some food." We've been in town long enough now, we didn't even have to say who we were or prove we weren't smuggling him any weapons. They led us back to find Juan in a very austere cell with just a foam mat on the floor. Juan insisted on paying us for the food, but we told him to keep his money for now as something might come up that he'll need money for before he gets out tomorrow. Pray he and his siblings can learn to get along! Weird.
