A letter to my Mom

The following is a fictional letter based on a true situation. Just so nobody will worry - I am not now, nor have I ever been, in jail in Moldova.
Read and enjoy.

Dear Mom,
I am writing to you from a jail in Transnistria. Not to worry, they say that Moldovans rarely hold prisoners longer than it takes for a letter to be mailed from Chisinau to Canada. Hopefully we will be out in time for Christmas, but remember that Christmas here is celebrated in January, not December!
You may wonder how I arrived in this predicament and whether I am suffering for the Lord, like Paul and Silas in the Bible. Well, you might say that… My fellow team members and I were on our way to Transnistria to visit one of our relief and development projects. We were bringing essential provisions for the relief of anyone living in a distant land: chocolate. Not that Transnistria is a different land; it is part of Moldova, but they like to pretend that they are part of Russia. So, they speak Russian, and teach their children Russian, and require even Romanian-speaking children to attend Russian schools. The people in charge obviously went to the same political school as some of our Quebec friends. So anyway, we were on our way to visit a project that provides healthy wholesome meals to some of the poorest children in the community. The meals are provided by the local church and our organization funds the project. After lunch, the children are then cared for through the afternoon and taught about the love of God, in a country that for so many years did not allow such instruction to be given.
Friends in Germany had made a donation of this chocolate candy, so we were taking it to the children to supplement the wholesome meal with one more essential food group (chocolate). However, the pastor of the church met us before we got to the ‘border’ crossing and when we told him we had chocolate, he was greatly concerned whether we would be allowed to take it in. We discussed various options, such as covering the chocolate with our jackets, but felt that was not an open Christian type of behaviour. We didn’t want to exactly hide them so we put them under the back seat of the van.
Unfortunately, after examining our passports carefully, the border guards decided to search the van for contraband that we might be smuggling. When he found the chocolate, we knew that trouble was on the way. We generously offered him one of the packages of chocolate candy and I think he would have let us go. But he opened up the package and took a bite and then frowned. He picked up the package again and saw that it was past the expiry date – by 2 days! What?!! (he said in Russian) ‘You are trying to smuggle illegal substances into the country and not just that but illegal substances that are beyond the expiry date. Outrageous!! Off to jail with you!” And with that we were whisked away at gunpoint in one of the old old Russian army tanks they keep handy for such situations. We were driven for another half an hour over the incredibly pot-holed bumpy roads of the city and then thrown into a jail cell with rusty hinges on the door, spiders on the wall and the essential hole in the floor in the corner of the cell. “No toilet paper for you!” the jailer proclaimed as he slammed shut the rusty door. So I just wanted to write you this quick note to let you know that I am safe and secure but not to expect e-mails for a little while.
Love, your daughter, suffering for righteousness’ sake (ok – suffering on account of chocolate)

PS – If you are wondering how you got this so quickly it’s because shortly after I wrote the above, something amazing happened. First we prayed. Then (we found out later) the jailer started eating some of the chocolate the border guard had given him as Exhibit A of our crime. He opened a package and ate it, then opened another one and started to eat it. It was so good, he couldn’t believe that it was actually stale-dated. So he checked the package – and it wasn’t expired. He checked more of the packages and soon discovered that there was only actually one package of chocolate that was expired, and that just happened to be the one the guard had sampled. So he decided that we had been wrongly thrown in the slammer and we could go, if we gave him the chocolate. We explained the children’s project to him and he agreed that we could take enough chocolate to give each child one package and he would keep the rest. He sent a driver to get our van, and before it was even lunchtime, we managed to get to the location where the children’s feeding program was held. What a delightful time we had, and weren’t the children pleased to receive their chocolate! It was a Relief to us all to give it to them. And once we get home again, I will advise you of any further Developments.