Our pastor and a dear friend came to visit which gave us the wonderful opportunity to send a few gifts home. I was planning to do just that when I went to look through my luggage that I seldom use, and I noticed something strange….
Uh-oh…as I opened the luggage, A I RAT JUMPED OUT!!! If the rat waited for me to open up the luggage, I knew something worse awaited me. Sure enough, when I looked down, I saw that the rat had chewed through so many of my things and made such a mess….
And this is why…
Five baby rodents were lying in a nest of a chewed up tract. So I gave the baby rats to our boys and they had to do to them what I could not. I felt bad for the mom and knew she would be so sad when she found out what happened. But she chewed through a lot of my things!
As some of you may know, God provided me with the gift of going to Kazakhstan for a dear friends wedding.
It was a very blessed time and I thank God for it. After two weeks, I was happy to return home to Avoda and continue to do the work that God has called me to do. I had to go through a few of my things and when I went to my luggage…
AGAIN!!!! I could not believe it!!! This time, the damage was worse!!!
Six pairs of shoes were ruined among other things. Staya and I decided to do ‘WAR’ with this rat. She took the babies, put them in a bag, hung the bag up and said she’d deal with them. This all happened before church so we had to quickly get dressed and with all the commotion we sort of forgot about the rats. After the service, Staya came to me and asked if I had been back to the bungalow….”no” I said. She looked at me with her puppy eyes and said “I’m so sorry, I don’t know what happened”
We walked together back to our place and went in. The bag that had been holding the baby rats was torn to shreds and lying beside my bed. The babies were no where to be found. This was NOT music to my ears. We came to the conclusion that they had to be inside somewhere if the mama rat went to the trouble of bringing them in. We looked a bit but could not locate them. I took my bed apart knowing full well that she might have put them there somewhere (because a few weeks ago I unknowingly slept with a snake) but they were no where to be found. We spread some rat poison around and decided to hope for the best.
Later on that evening, I was putting things in order, and decided to check more thoroughly. I have a beautiful shelf above my bed that we keep our things on.
I really doubted she’d be there but I checked none the less. I moved a few things and saw a huge spot of fur. I ran out of our bungalow and quickly called Anita. Staya wasn’t nearby and I didn’t know what to do. Anita came running and together we tried to come up with a plan. When we came near her and moved one of the books, SHE JUMPED RIGHT ON ME! Anita leaped onto to our ladder and I started jumping around both of us screaming our heads off. The rat ran out a crack in our floor. Her babies were left behind again.
And once again…some more damage
The damage wasn’t TOO bad this time. But don’t worry, we now have beautiful pink rat poison EVERYWHERE!!!
It’s wonderful to be able to see the humor in this situation and we certainly do. The girls are still baffled as to why the rat seems to like my things over theirs…but I don’t think they’re too sad about it. And I now know that I would prefer a snake over a rat ANYDAY! I REALLY LOVE THAILAND :)
