this is a story of something that will probably impact me for a long time. (psa this is a little scary but i promise there is a happy ending). 2 of my friends and i were on our way to the local grocery store to get some hair for braids and a kumbi (our local public transportation) pulled up on the opposite side of the road and asked us to get in. note that there was nobody in the car besides the driver and the guy who takes the money in the back seat. so naturally, we did. he told us that he would turn around and go to save mor just as we had asked. so he began driving, straight, not turning, for let’s just say a long time. about 5 miles in the opposite direction of where we got picked up from probably like 15 miles away from our destination, save mor. so i told him that we were in a rush to get to save mor so he said “oh you’re in a rush, let me speed up” and began to go even faster in the opposite direction. at this point, me and my 2 friends are shaking in our boots. we had no clue what to even think. so the driver guy turns onto this dirt path facing the mountain and says “we are going to the mountain”. this is when i lost my ish. i remembered that when my squad first got to Swaziland, they told us that the mountain behind our team house is one of the biggest places for sex trafficking in the country and just that we be very careful. this completely terrified me. when this man said this, i flung open my door (i was sitting in the front seat) and immediately got out of the car and said “i’m leaving, that’s ok”. my friends in the back seat had to shove the kumbi helper to the side and push their way out because the driver really didn’t want us leaving. he was saying things like “why are you running away from me?” and “i’m going to come back and get you”. so we got out and started walking. praying for safety in this bush of africa place that we hadn’t seen before.
so we get back to the compound and we all are still in shock. my anxiety was coming out of every hole of my body. in other words, i was an anxious mess. i started having some sort of anxiety attack and i shut my eyes and saw something. i saw jesus, sitting in between me and the driver, pushing me out of the car and telling me that it was unsafe. i then thought back to when i opened the car door and got out, and realized that the feeling i was having of stumbling out of the kumbi quite possibly could’ve been because of my anxiety- or it was jesus telling me that he was with us, protecting us. His hand guided the situation and honestly things could be very different right now if i wouldn’t have gotten out of that car.
with this being a really scary experience, i learned a lot from it. i learned that my instincts are a lot better than i thought. getting out of the car when i felt in danger and standing up for myself when the man wouldn’t turn around. i learned to never get in a kumbi that has nobody in it (like normal pedestrians) because if the driver has a bus full of americans, who knows what he is going to do with them. i learned to always listen to gut feelings, because Jesus talks to us through gut feelings. emmy bri and i all felt weird about getting in the kumbi and we got in anyway. we have gut feelings for a reason people!
one thing that i’ve had to remind myself is that it’s easy to look at the situation and think that “oh it’s not that big of a deal, we must’ve been overreacting” but in the grand scheme of things, we were in grave danger. things could be totally different right now and i thank God everyday that they are not. but when we undermine the serverity of dangerous situations, we are taking away from the protection and faithfulness the Lord had in that specific situation. His Goodness and protection will ALWAYS prevail. i am safe and i am at peace. he is my protector and he is my peace.
(pls ignore all of the grammar and spelling errors im currently writing this in the notes on my phone)
peace and blessings!
