Sun burned from standing on the side of the road for nearly 2 hours, my friends and I finally came to the realization that we were stranded. Stranded and screwed.
3 members of my team and 3 members from team Jedi Counsel, a team the lives in a village only 30 minutes away, had missed the 5 am bus that would take us from Bokspits to Tsabong in order to do our grocery shopping. Our teams had been told that the bus would not be running at 5 am like usual but at 12 instead. But just like everything else in Africa, nothing is guaranteed or ever actually on schedule.
Both of our teams were out of food and out of a ride to get us where we needed to be. To add to the stress, supposedly the busses would not be running for the weekend because of the easter holiday. We weren’t entirely sure why, all we were sure of was that we had to get to Tsabong that day in order to come home the following day with food and before the busses stopped running.
We were screwed. We were desperate. Car after car we flagged down to try and see if we could hitch a ride from anyone who was going to Tsabong. Bokspits isn’t that big so mostly everyone either knows us or we know them. Hitching rides in the back of pickup trucks is also very common in Africa.
Not a single person was heading to Tsabong. Someone even informed us that we would not find anyone because the only place that sells gas is in Tsabong, so not many people had enough gas to even get us to Tsabong. Great. Cool.
This couldn’t happen. The six of us had to be in Tsabong by the end of the day. With nothing else left that I could do in my power, I prayed to my God who has all the power.
The Babes have recently been reading a book called the Circle Maker. It’s all about the power of prayer and circling promises made in scripture. Well I believe in a God that provides for HIs children, so I began to pray for God’s provision.
The six of us decided to walk down the road to see if we would have a better chance of catching a ride. I began to pray to God saying that this was us acting out in faith. Instead of going home and just trying again another day, we were relentless in our effort to get to Tsabong. We were walking down the road because we believed that God was going to get us where we needed to go so that we could buy the food we needed. Not only did I pray for God to send someone to drive us, I praised Him for the person He was going to send us because I believed that He was going to make a way for us to get to Tsabong. I believed that God was going to come through because there was no way we were getting there on our own ability.
Not even a minute into prayer before a white suburban pulls up. Good ol Barbara who works at border patrol and lives in Bokspits pulled over to see what our problem was. After hearing our problem, desperation, and 2 hour long effort we had given, she felt bad for us. Barbara wasn’t planning on any trip to Tsabong. But God wasn’t done.
“Just take my car,” Barbara said. I can’t even describe the shock on all of our faces. Here was this woman in Africa offering to let us borrow her car, drive it 3 hours away to Tsabong, stay the night, and drive it back the next day. She had just bought the car not even a year ago!
She didn’t want any money or anything we had to give. She was just thankful for the work we were doing in Botswana. Here was Barbara, our very generous friend, being used by God to be the answer to all of our prayers. Here was God, being the father that provides for His children. And here we were, amazed and perplexed by the limitless capability of a God who loves and care for us. God is great.
