Grace and a Tic-Tac.

“You give me a bit of breakfast money and I cut the fine by half for you. Then I return you your driving licence.”

 

They are called “black devils in white”.

 

A term coined by the locals themselves, it reflects the grudging respect people have for them. Clad in bright white which glistens against their dark skin in the unforgiving heat, they are known for stopping drivers for a variety of reasons, some legitimate and others… not quite.

 

“Pull over, sir. You were speeding at 64kmph. The limit here is 50.”

 

On several previous occasions, we had been stopped by the traffic police. With a lot of cheerful banter in my learnt Luganda language, they often just laughed with us, and sent us on our way promptly. Once, they asked for “breakfast money”, but our gregarious conversation in Luganda brightened their day enough for them to let us drive on without further trouble.

 

“You have made me happy, my friend,” is a common phrase ending the time-ticking interruption in our journey. We would often pray silently, as we had heard stories from other missionaries, who, being perceived as wealthy, were quarantined and threatened to give bribes.

 

This time, the masquerading angel was taciturn, even at my Lugandan greeting.

 

Showing us a thick traffic rules book and pointing his speed radar at us, he said sternly to Cliff, “See here? 64. The limit here is 50. You must pay a fine. 200’000 shillings.”

 

I was shocked. That was a slap of 80 US dollars. For missionaries living on a budget, it was a significant dent to our monthly expenditure.

 

We had not noticed the speed limit signs in that area, which are often camouflaged in the eclectic, distracting mess of the village town. The car was going downhill. But the radar said 64, and that was that.

 

“Driving license?” he demanded from Cliff. “I keep. You pick it up when you pay your fine in town.”

 

“Nsonyiwa,” I said, which meant we were sorry. “We did not know. We will be more careful next time. We are volunteers, new to this area.”

 

“Volunteers? How new? How can you not know?” he asked disdainfully.

 

“We just got this car recently,” I replied, pointing at our dusty 2-door, 20-year old, rickety Rav-4.

 

Then, just before scribing Cliff’s name onto the traffic ticket, a little smile crept up on his grim face.

 

“I’ll give you a chance,” he said.

 

“Webale, ssebo (Thank you, sir)!” I said with a sigh of relief, before he quickly quipped in, truncating my premature joy, “Fifty-fifty. You give me a bit of breakfast money and I cut fine by half for you. Then I return you the driving licence too.”

 

Cliff and I looked at each other. We had discussed this before- what giving a bribe meant and what our values stood for. We had heard of missionaries before quarantined for hours because they had refused to bribe.

 

Without hesitation, my husband replied, “It’s okay. I’ll pay the fine. Take my license. Write me the ticket. I’ll go to town and figure out where your police station is.”

 

My heart sank at the thought of the hefty fine and the trouble he would have to go through to pay it, perhaps even losing his license altogether. But I beamed with joy and pride for a husband who stuck to his values.

 

Being a Singaporean who had journeyed as a child in several drivers’ cars across the border to Malaysia for short trips, seeing drivers giving “coffee money” to traffic policemen to avoid traffic fines was a common sight to me. Yet, here was my own husband, risking losing his driving license and willing to bear the inconvenience of paying for a hefty fine in a country whose system we are unfamiliar with, simply because he knew it was the right thing to do.

 

After a long pause, the traffic policeman frowned and muttered to us, “Are you guys Christians?”

 

“Yes,” I said. “My husband is a preacher. And we don’t bribe. But if you are hungry and want something to eat, I have a mint.”

 

Then came the ending statement which we have heard one too many times, “You have made me happy. Just go.” He received the single Tic-Tac with thanks.

 

With a huge sigh of relief, we drove away, feeling a wave of grace wash over us: We had done wrong for speeding unknowingly and had deserved the consequences in the form of a fine. Then, just as we had been presented the most dire consequences we needed to pay for, we were given the easier, more attractive alternative to opt out of the Justice Equation by paying a bribe. It seemed like a win-win for both sides.

 

But at the end, Cliff’s decision to stand for God shone through. It was a miracle of grace that overturned the equation completely and left us humbled, marveling at the grace God had shown and continues to show us, when we choose to stand for Him.

 

There was no bribe, or ticket to pay for. But we learnt a lesson of looking out better for speed limit signs, and an important lesson of grace.

 

“Therefore no one will be declared righteous in God’s sightby the works of the law;

rather, through the law we become conscious of our sin…

for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,

and all are justified freely by his grace

through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.”

– Romans 3:30,23-24