Some background info- as you may or may not know, to get around everywhere in Battambang, my squad and i ride bicycles. The streets here are wild. There is maybe one stoplight in the whole city, and there is no correct side of the street when driving.
So! The boys on our squad (Team Covenant) planned an entire day for my team (Kaleo) saturday the 27th! They surprised us with a homemade breakfast and a day full of adventurous fun activities. The day ended in worship and thanksgiving while the boys continued serving us well.
On the way home from dinner, me, my teammate eliza, and one of our male leaders were biking home. We were biking far on the right side of the street, and at this time of night there wasn’t busy traffic. We were talking about the Twilight series, when a man on a motorcycle drove up on my right side. My first thought was, “oh oops im in this man’s way, let me get over a little so he can pass.” As i tried to move to the left, the man reached over towards me, grabbing my entire bag out of my front basket of the bike. Then he sped off down a dark alley. Inside my bag contained my water bottle, phone, eliza’s phone, and my whole wallet. It makes sense that the first thing the devil would attack would be what God just redeemed in my team’s hearts: how men should act.
Immediately, i felt the peace of the Lord, which was kind of odd. I honestly started laughing. Who else can say they got their bag stolen from a man on a moto, in cambodia??? Then i looked and saw the fear in eliza’s eyes. I started praying for the Lord to convict the man’s heart, and i proclaimed love over him. I also, locked my phone and all the credit cards that night.
THIS IS WHERE IT GETS REALLY CRAZY
So fast forward to Tuesday the 30th, one of my squadmates Cara ran into our room saying the lady who does our laundry (Sokalin, you can see a picture of her in my photos) found a wallet with the name “Maria” in it. I didn’t really get my hopes up, but i walked downstairs and asked my leader taylor what was going on. And basically, this is the timeline of events that followed right after the man took my bag…..
The man immediately went to an ATM and tried to use all the credit cards. Since all were locked, he could not. Frustrated (im assuming lol) he threw my whole bag into a field in a village, that’s on the outskirts of Battambang. The people in the village found my bag and gave it to the chief of the village. The chief of this far away village in freaking cambodia, looked through and found a receipt of the laundry and called the number on the paper. When Cara went to get her clean laundry, Sokalin told Cara who then told me.
Me, my leader Luke, and Chhady (our khmer house mama) went in a tuk tuk to this chief’s house in this random village to retrieve my stuff. Long story short, Luke had to pay off the chief, and everything was returned to me except the cell phones.
HOW amazing is our God!!!!!! When that man drove off with my stuff, it sucked, but i was okay with never seeing it again. God is SO in the details. He even brought my water bottle back to me! That man easily could have burned everything, or the villagers could have thrown it all away. I never want to stopped being amazed by Him!! That was so God, like cmon!!
Love amazing. Your mercy rushes through me. How beautiful is our God!!!
