This little article is not a heavy duty ministry message… just a bit of a personal reflection / observation from a small town southern boy. One thing that has been unique (to me) in our ministry here in Eastern Europe is getting accustom to the public transportation systems in the larger cities. Back home in rural West Tennessee, we never experienced such things. We simply jumped in a car or truck and went here and there.
Here in Brno, for instance, we have a good reliable tram and bus system which can get you to pretty much any major part of the city. I would like to place emphasis on the word “reliable” because we have been in places where this was not true. I am thankful for the system we have here. We rely on it a great deal because we do not have a vehicle assigned to us. We do have access to a team van but we rarely use it because it is just simpler to buy a monthly tram / bus pass and go. The biggest factor that we had to get used to was planning for overall transportation time. For instance, if we need to go to the area of town where our colleagues live, we need to plan for about 40 minutes one way. So, in most cases, we need to allow for at least one hour of travel time to and from places that we need to go.
Riding the trams can be very interesting at times. The picture in this article was taken with my little Nokia cell phone and shows a typical afternoon scene on a crowded tram. You can’t tell it from this picture but when you see the rows of people under the orange hand bars, there is an outer row on either side with people sitting. It can be pretty jam packed at times and if you get stuck in the middle between doors, you just have to respectfully push your way out. When it is a hot day, you also catch many different aromas wafting about… some not as pleasant as others! If you get my drift!
Well, that is enough for this little ramble and if this is “old hat” to you, just indulge me because many of my small town friends have not even experienced this type of travel. Oh, and for you newbies, when you do… watch your wallet!
