Email 
Bookmark 
Print The Serendipitous Nail
by Helen Lepp FriesenNails have a curious function in life. It was with nails that God wrought our salvation.
I'll never forget an experience I once had with a nail.
My first job after graduating from a two year teachers college in Paraguay was in Tres Palmas, a German speaking community in East Paraguay. It was during the time when Paraguay, Argentina, and Brazil were constructing a large earth filled dam on the Rio Parana to provide electricity for many of the rural communities that had no power. As the river was dammed, the reservoir of water that backed up flooded many districts almost overnight, including Tres Palmas.
Tres Palmas was a community that was located on two hills that were divided by a road. When the land flooded, the road was washed away and the two hills were now divided by a huge lake. Life changed quite drastically. A school bus was replaced with a school boat. The main means of transportation from one week to the next changed from cars and motorcycles to boats and canoes.
One Sunday evening I was getting ready to go to a youth outing. From my house I could see when the big motor boat docked to take us to church. I was talking to my colleague with whom I shared the house.
"Don't you want to come along this evening?" I asked Basilisa.
"No, I've got some grading to do. I'll rather stay here," she said. As we talked, she stooped down and picked something up from the ground.
"What's that?" I asked her.
"A nail." She fingered the smooth nail while we talked and when I heard the boat's horn down at the dock, she handed me the nail. "Here," she said. "Take this."
"Why?" I asked.
"You just might need it." With that she unzipped my purse and plopped the nail in it's depths. I shrugged my shoulders and almost immediately forgot about that nail as I ran down the hill to catch the boat.
The boat was a big old cumbersome thing that could hold at least fifty people. I don't remember where Tres Palmas had come up with this boat that was used to transport children to school during the week and parishioners to church on Sunday. Since the transportation mode had changed so quickly, the boat was not equipped with enough life jackets for everyone and who knows whether paddles even went with it.
It was a beautiful evening for a ride on the lake in a boat. The going was always slow because the driver had to be careful not to get the motor stuck in tree tops. We must have looked like Noah's ark carefully making our way across flooded land. But for us young people, it was an adventure. We sang and laughed as one responsible young man manoeuvred the boat to the other side of the lake to where the church was. After the boat was docked, we all ran up the hill to the church where the celebrating
continued.
Once the youth gathering was over, we made our way back to the boat and exuberantly clamoured on again for a romantic ride across the lake in the light of the moon. Silver shadows danced on the water and the few tree tops made shiny ghostlike reflections. The songs of the excited crowd of young people became mellow as we slowly made our way home across the lake. Suddenly in the middle of the lake the gentle hum of the motor stopped. Silence echoed from the trees.
"What's the matter?" one person asked.
"I don't know," the driver said.
We all crowded around the motor, almost demanding an explanation from it. The motor obviously did not respond. A few young men started tinkering with it and coaxing it. The rest of us watched. How quickly the silvery water lost its romance and the moon its friendly face. It was nice as long as we were moving along, even slowly, but no one was interested in spending the night out there.
"A screw fell out of one of the motor blades," one young man announced. "Now what?"
"Any paddles on board?"
We all busied ourselves to look around on the scarcely furnished boat. It didn't even have benches. It didn't take long for us to figure out that there were no paddles either.
"Can we fix it?" someone asked.
"Not without another screw."
"Did it drop on the ground?"
Another search on hands and knees for a lost screw ensued. Empty-handed we got up.
"Can something be substituted for the screw?"
"Temporarily perhaps. But it has to fit exactly in this tiny hole. Maybe a pen tip. Anyone have a pen?"
A girl pulled a pen out of her pocket. The driver tried to fit it into the Lilliputian hole. It might have worked but the tip got fat before it could wiggle it's way into the hole. Calling for help would be useless. We were too far away from the shore for anyone to hear us. Thoughts of spending a cold night on a boat in the middle of a lake ran through everyone's mind.
Suddenly the driver asked, "A nail would do it. Does anyone have a nail?"
"Yeah, we all go walking around with a nail in our pocket."
"Well you Marvin, you're a carpenter. Don't you have a nail on you?"
Marvin did search in all his pockets to appease everyone. "I'm sorry--I don't take my nails to church."
Suddenly I remembered the nail in my purse. "I have one." My yell was met with stares of disbelief. My disbelief matched theirs. My nail would probably never fit anyway.
I rummaged in my purse and produced the nail Basilisa had given me earlier that evening. The young man put the nail in the hole where the screw had been. It was a perfect fit. Nails come in all shapes and sizes; this one happened to fit exactly. The hum of the motor then, was one of the sweetest sounds of the evening.
God handed down a little piece of serendipity in the shape of a nail, once again.
I think it was a gentle reminder.
Easter is a wonderful time of remembering the salvation wrought for us with nails and Christ's blood. Celebrate the season--click here.
