Meet: The Carabinieri
High Carbs
They’re not exactly like your state troopers back home. They’re also not your normal traffic police. These guys are “above” the traffic. They’re federal-para-military-city-provincial-police and they deal in high crime like bank robberies, pedophilia, extortion, mafia, terrorism, and all kinds of bad ragu.
Whatta’ u’ guys want?
So, it surprised me when I came back from the States and received notice to appear before the Carabinieri as soon as possible for atti di giustizia. Now, atti di giustizia can mean a couple things. First, it can mean acts of justice like somebody is suing us, there’s a citation against me, or they caught me putting too much sugar in my coffee. Or second, however, the word giustizia is also the biblical word for righteousness. They could’ve been asking for me to appear to preform acts of righteousness — WHICH I’M MORE THAN WILLING TO DO.
I couldn’t figure it out. I was racking my brain. I was wondering what Andrew (our summer assistant) had done with my car or my house or how he had illegally extorted my chihuahua. I had nothin’.
The Buzz Around Town
After you get buzzed-in at the front gate, you have to wait to get buzzed-in at the front door. Then, you have to buzz to get the attending officer.
So, the attendant takes my notice, looks at it and says, “Oh, it’s you.” Now what’s that supposed to mean? I haven’t even been in the country for the last five weeks. He goes on to say, “You’ll have to wait for about 10 minutes for the captain.” There’s one more buzzing door that I have to get through to find out my penalty. That’s the back-room buzz.
10 Minutes - on Whose Sun-Dial?
Another day in history when the sun stood still. About 50 minutes later, I’m really ready to go. The projects and tasks have really piled up over the last five weeks since I’ve been gone. It’s a good thing I had my Italian Bible with me so that I could catch up on my reading for the day. After an hour, it was very simple to discern the spiritual lesson in all of this — “your time is not your own. I’m the source of it and this is My will for you in this hour.” Finally, after an hour and some, I was called back to sit down with the captain.
Grand Theft Auto & Insurance Fraud
Yes, here’s the point where the plot thickens. As the Caribinieri begins to speed-read this crazy tale to me, I had to ask him to back up and go slower so that I could catch the story. I knew at that moment that this would make a great adventure to blog about.
Here’s the scoop: A black BMW sportscar was stolen in Austria. The owner of the car filed a claim and received the insurance money for it. Shortly after receiving the money from the insurance company, the car was discovered in excellent condition in our region of Italy. So, the insurance company wanted to see if it was a ruse to bilk them of their highly-priced policy earnings. The reason I was summoned was because the owner of the car’s name was Michael Krause. So, they did a search and found one Robert Krause living in the same region as the discovery of the stolen car and wanted to investigate to see if I have any knowledge of Mike or beyond.
I promptly said “no” and signed the statements accordingly. I then asked him if he knew what it was that I did for a living here in the city. And he did — quite well, I might add. At that point he asked me about our “freedom to marry” as leaders of the Church.
Ok, remember I told you that I had my Italian Bible with me? And since I had just had an hour to study it — well, I thought it was a good time to bring it out on the desk for a few minutes and read *my* report too. We explored Timothy & Romans together for a while, and I made a new friend who had never had an interview quite like this one.
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What a great story!!! God’s time.
Comment by Ann — 9/5/2006 @ 3:38 pm
Awesome…isn’t it funny. We wonder what in the world God is doing. Then, after fighting the impatience, it becomes clear. It happens to me alot. What an encouraging story…and glad to hear your not mixed up with the bad Provenzano’s over there.
Comment by Bill Provenzano — 9/11/2006 @ 5:00 am
Glad to hear that the Captain of the Carabinieri in Sacile knows EXACTLY who you are. Guess that means he knows WHOSE you are now as well! Praise God for that- to be known as HIS is so vitally important. Then to rely on Him for our sanctification every step of the way that our witness would be a blessing and not a curse to the Jesus’ Church.
Comment by Tim Mazzola — 2/6/2007 @ 11:40 pm