Texans and Tall Taxi Tales

It was a little after 5 in the afternoon when our plane touched down at DFW. The squelch of the tires on the tarmac was one of the most beautiful sounds I’ve heard in a very long time. It had been a month and over 22,000 miles since I last saw Texas and as we taxied to the gate I could hardly wait to kiss my bride and eat an enchilada…in that order.

After a month in India, I have never enjoyed a traffic jam like I did from the airport. Not a single rickshaw or holy cow blocking the highway. It was awesome. All of the Brewer clan went directly, on the right side of the road, to my favorite Tex-Mex joint. It was a lot like what I imagine heaven to be. Family, fellowship and guacamole.

This trip to India was my most successful mission to that part of the word yet. We actually stayed at the orphanage we support and spent a lot of time with my 300 kids. We visited our leper colony and hosted more than 50 pastors at an encouragement conference. I was able to hire an Indian band to back me and one Monday night we did a praise and worship concert for as many people as could stand a song in English. What a hoot!

It was powerful and life changing but it was not without incident. When you travel throughout the world, really anything can happen. Third world countries can be dangerous places and you have to really believe God for protection on so many levels.

Taxis in one form or another have been around for as long as there have been people that needed them. By the end of the 19th century, cars began to appear on NYC streets and it wasn’t long before a number of these cars were hiring themselves out in competition with horse-drawn carriages. Although these electric-powered cabs were slightly impractical with batteries weighing upwards of eight hundred pounds, by 1899 there were nearly one hundred of them on the streets.

Progress has always had its price, and on September 13th of that year, a sixty-eight year-old man named Henry H. Bliss was helping a friend from a streetcar when a taxi swerved and hit him. This gave Bliss the dubious distinction of being the first American to die in a car wreck, and giving cabbies a first glimpse at a reputation they would soon solidify.

I have been in taxicabs all over the world. I think that London has the Best taxicabs and San Francisco has the craziest cab drivers, or at least the funnest. I don’t mind hoping in a cab from time to time so it didn’t bother me to take one from the domestic airport to the international airport in Bombay.

I thought a cab ride through the rugged streets of Bombay might be fun. You never know when you might come across a rope trick or maybe even a cobra charmer. It just so happens though that the cab that my son and I climbed into Bombay was not actually a cab but part a small crew of thieves that looks for gullible fat white guys to rob.

The bottom line is that we were not taken to the airport but the bad part of town where our driver picked up a cohort and commenced to rob us. There is a whole lot to this story but let me tell you this. By the time it was over, we were safely at the airport, with our passports and luggage intact. It really was a miracle.

These confessions of a highly caffeinated Christian only go so far but let me give God glory for giving me and my 16 year old son the ability to overcome those robbers. They got away with a few dollars from Bens front pocket but with a lot less pride and a few less teeth after it was all over with.

My suggestion to the robbers is to not tangle with two men of God from Texas. Especially ones nearly crazy from a lack of enchiladas. If you know my grandmother Francis Millican, please don’t tell her this part of the story. I’m in enough trouble for going there anyway.

"He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty.
I will say of the LORD, "He is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust. Surely he will save you from the fowler's snare and from the deadly pestilence. He will cover you with his feathers, and under his wings you will find refuge; his faithfulness will be your shield."
Psalms 91:1-4