Traveling from country to country can often bring challenges, frustration, and blessings. On this particular travel day, Jesus taught me a whole lot about patience, peace, trust, and joy. He provided shelter, water, light, and safety. So, I invite you to continue reading on how a 7 hour travel day became a 22 hour travel day.
Let’s begin with Friday morning, 6:15 am. All 46 of us loaded onto a school bus. Now, school buses here don’t have air conditioning, but they do have giant flat screens at the front. Classic Central America. It only takes us about 2 hours to get to the border. We showed the necessary documents so there should have been no problem. Some people from the border got on the bus to check things out. They saw our musical instruments and voice we all of a sudden need certain permits? We spent the next 4-5 hours at the border trying to get these “permits”. Mind you, we are exiting the country… but details…. around hour 4 of signatures, running in circles to different windows of the building, passports, and lots of “sorry” faces, we go to one more window. We were in a crowded room of 45 people waiting in line… only to find out the office went on lunch break. At this point, I wanted to cry. I wanted to curse. All 7 of us with our guitars were fed up, tired, and OVER these permits.
We had almost reached our breaking points until we noticed how awful our attitudes had been. Yes, the cards dealt that day weren’t the best, but we had a choice to be filled with Christ or with anger. In that moment, we pulled the guitar out, and sang. We sang in English, we sang in Spanish. We chose to glorify God in that moment, because that was the only thing that would truly transform our attitudes.
At one moment, a teammate nudged me, and I opened my eyes and saw a mother singing along to the worship songs as she stroked her sons curly locks in line. There was something in that moment that overwhelmed my heart and spirit… I began to weep in this border control office. How God filled that room… it truly overwhelmed me. Others entire demeanor changed. After 6 hours at border patrol, we got back on the bus. Oh, and in case you’re wondering, they never checked our guitars or permits…we can laugh about it now though!
We were finally on our way! Despite our bus drivers stopping to ask for directions every 15 minutes, we were making good time! About an hour and a half in, we were stopped at a police check point. These are normal in Honduras, but still, a school bus full of Americans, it can look sketchy haha. Once the police asked a few questions and checked some passports, we got the go to continue on. Except for one minor detail, our bus breaks down…
We spend the next hours waiting for it to get fixed, contacting all our hosts, and calling hostels. There we were, stranded. But let me highlight a few blessings:
1. Out of all the places for a bus to break down, it was at a police academy. 2. Our bus was in a well lit area and not on the side of a dark road. 3. Bathrooms. 4. Water 5. New Friends
During one of the hours, Jordan King, Sarah R. and I befriended some of the officers. With our little Spanish, we chatted about music, life, and laughed. We hadn’t eaten and had no more water since it was almost 11 pm, and these officers not only refilled our water bottles with cold, filtered water, but they filled our squad mates bottles too! The Lord showed favor on us.
(a picture of our new police friends, Carlos and Jefferson)
Finally, around midnight, a new bus picked us up and took us to Tegucigalpa. We arrived around 3 am tired, but grateful. This hostel was only supposed to host Ellen’s team of 7 because it was packed the day before. Somehow there was a cancelation and the owner allowed 5 out of the 7 teams on our squad to stay. If you do the math, that is over 35 people. He even brought beds into his own office so that none of us would be on the streets at 3am.
The Lord truly provided. Though this travel day was the longest 22 hours of my life, God provided! He took care of us. Shelter, water, safety. Each step along this journey, He was there. I learned so much over those 22 hours! Abandonment is not a characteristic of God. He is faithful. He is a father. Blessings my friends(:
