5/14/2014
So here was Friday:
We went to our appointment with Brenda, she opened the door
and let us in, we take off our shoes and sit down. Brenda has a bowl of
fishsticks that she's eating for lunch maybe that's just her type of snack, who
knows. We ask her how she's doing, you know, causal, pre-lesson,
our-investigator-is-still-eating-fishsticks-so-we-don't-want-to-start-talking-about-Jesus-yet
type chitchat. She says she's good, but she's sad because her brother is lost.
"Wait, he's lost?"
"Yeah."
"Where is he?"
"We don't know"
"How long has he been missing?"
"5.5 hours"
"Oh my gosh! What are you going to do?"
"We already called the police. They'll be here any
minute"
We're way confused and the mom comes in to try to explain to
us in Cambodian what happened. Unfortunately we don't actually speak that
language, especially when someone is hysterical over the loss of their child
and so is talking super fast. We called the other sisters to come help us
translate and as far as we were able to ascertain, Kosal (23 but mentally the
age of a 7 year old) got on a bus for work that morning, and when he went to
switch buses, he got on the wrong bus thinking it would be faster, and then no
one knows what happened after that, except that his boss called at 10 to say he
hadn't showed up at work. The other sisters left to the bus stop he
theoretically should have gotten off on and looked for him along the route.
After a while of trying to extract more information from Brenda's little
understanding and her mom's little English, there's a knock at the door.
Brenda throws open the door and yells, "WHO ARE
YOU?"
"The Police"
"WHAT?!"
PAUSE- Remember how Brenda wanted Sister Walker to get the
priesthood and baptize her because she thinks boys are gross? Yeah, as it turns
out, her issue with boys is that she thinks they're way not-gross. Meaning, she
is in love with all of them. Old, young, fat, bald, she has crushes on every
boy and they all make her super nervous. We witnessed this firsthand as she
periodically broke into giggling fits whenever the male police officer would
ask her a question.
So this is pretty much how the investigation went:
The cop would say something such as, "did you actually
see him get on the bus? Or is it possible he walked somewhere else from the bus
stop?"
Brenda would yell out, "WHAT?! Hehehehehehehehe"
and then have to turn around because she'd be lost in a fit of nervous
laughter.
Then we'd try to translate the question into Cambodian,
which meant we actually just said basically the same English words but in a
Cambodian accent. Brenda's mom would go off, talking super fast and waving her
hands around for 2 full minutes, then leave the room. The cop would look to us
to translate her response, and we'd say something like, "Um, something
about a monkey on a fishing boat or maybe the number 7 or maybe she thinks Iron
Man 3 was better than Iron Man 2. One of those". Then he'd look to the
only remaining member of the family who was the grandma, who would just stand
their by the pillar with her arms folded and nod occasionally. This went on for
almost an hour. At one point, the grandpa came out of nowhere and pushed through
everyone and was like, "Bye, I go to work now" and everyone
completely calmly was like, "Okay, bye" but as soon as he shut the
door behind him Brenda starts giggling and hiding her face from the cop and her
mom is talking a million miles a minute in Cambodian and the grandma is still
leaning by the pole. I start to wonder if grandma nodding is actually her
trying not to fall asleep. The cop has pulled out notepads and is still asking
questions that we can't answer and is wondering if this is perhaps some sort of
prank. Brenda's mom goes and finds a phone that looks like it was purchased at
the same time as the Flintstones computer, dials some number on it, and shoves
it at the cop, who answers it, "Hello? Who is this? How are you related
to, uh, these people?" On the other end of the phone was perhaps the only
member of the family who speaks English, who from what Brenda's mom explained
is somehow her husband, Brenda and Kosal's uncle, and her grandpa's
cousin.
The dad/husband/uncle/cousin then proceeds to move us back
to square one by telling the cop no investigation is necessary, Kosal has no
disability but just doesn't know English well, and that he would find him
himself, thank you. After this phone call, the cop is ready to leave an
abandon the case because a perfectly functioning 23 year old doesn't need the
police out looking for him. We're begging him, "No no no don't leave yet
hold on that guy didn't know what he was talking about" and then have to
get out all these documents from doctors and counselors that say that Kosal is
indeed disabled, and if he got lost he wouldn't be able to think through how to
get himself home.
The cop finally leaves, still way confused and grumbling
something about how he was not adequately trained for this (I made that part
up) and we're trying to talk to the family and calm them down (except the
grandma who was the calmest and definitely asleep at this point). We sang a lot
of primary songs and everyone present said prayers that Kosal would be okay.
After another little while get a call from the dad/husband/uncle/cousin who
says he found a Taco Time, to which Sister Dunster explains, "no, we don't
need a Taco Time, we're looking for Kosal." Then Kosal's boss calls and
says he just showed up at work, starving and exhausted. Evidently, after
getting off the other bus and realizing he was all the way 2 towns over from
where he was supposed to be, he just walked all the way to work, which took
almost 7 hours.
The family is relieved, we say a prayer of thanks with them,
and then leave.
The next day, we got a call from Brenda: "I want to say
thank you for helping find my brother, and also, can I come to church on
Sunday?"
So, out of all the madness, Brenda's faith grew and desire
to follow God increased. Brenda's mom trusts us a lot now and her willingness
to let us come over increased. Kosal's desire to take the right bus increased.
The grandma's need of sleep decreased, because she napped peacefully during the
investigation. And the dad/husband/uncle/cousin's desire to eat Tacos probably
stayed about the same.
Also, the last visit we had with Brenda, her mom came in and
said thank you to us for helping. Either that or she said that Iron Man 3 is
better than Iron Man 2. We're not totally sure.
I've been in the WA-TAC 50 weeks, and the church is true
here too!
-JMcQuivs, regular civil servant
Janessa photo bombs another companionship!
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