“James, I just got all my stuff stolen,” Amanda said as she quietly walked in the door.
“Are you alright?” James responded.
“Ya, I’m fine, but they took everything. My passport, credit cards, earrings, everything.”
“Well as long as you are fine, we can get all that other stuff back,” Morgan reassured her.
It was not the way that I had planned being awaken at 1 in the morning, but it was what it was. It turned out that Amanda had been walking back to our hotel when a couple of guys came and demanded that she give them her purse. She did so and they ran away leaving her unharmed.
Our plan had been to head out to Lake Atitlan on Monday, but now our plans had suddenly changed and we decided that instead we needed to stay in Antigua until we got everything sorted out.
“So where is our taxi,” Amanda asked the local policemen after she had filled out the report.
Amanda and I got a taxi ride up to the police station across town and so she was seeing if perhaps they would drive us back.
“You can walk back,” The policeman quickly replied, “It will be good for your health.”
“It wasn’t very good for my health last night,” She smirkly responded.
We walked out of the police station and had just found out that the church that we had planned on staying in did not have room for us to stay. We knew we needed a place to stay and had already been praying about God opening up the door for us.
“Hey what are you doing,” Amanda yelled across the street to a young guy standing on a chair in front of his apartment.
“My neighbor keeps cutting my cable,” He told us as he jumped off the chair to greet us.
“Well that doesn’t sound to fun,” Andrew replied to him, “So where are you from man?”
“I am from Utah, I am down here for a couple of months learning Spanish at a school.”
“That is cool,” Amanda replied. “We are missionaries traveling around the world for a year going to a different country each month. We were planning on heading out to the lake but have to stay in town for a couple more days. Would you happen to know of any place to stay?”
“I am not sure really of a place to stay, you could stay here, but I am heading out this afternoon. You know if you guys are going to be around here for awhile you should really get in touch with my neighbor here. His name is Mike and he is a Local Pastor, he might be able to help you out. “
“Well it was nice meeting you. What did you say your name was again?”
“Brad.”
“Well nice to meet you Brad.”
We walked away from there enjoying meeting our new friend Brad. We think we helped calm him down a bit from getting to angry at his neighbor for cutting the cable.
We went back to meet the rest of our crew and talk about a place to stay. We decided to head down to a Christian Coffee shop that Amanda knew about from last year. We arrived at this quaint little coffee shop and met the girl working whose name is Karen.
“Is the pastor here,” Amanda asked.
“He is actually in a meeting right now, but will be done in a couple of minutes if you don’t mind waiting.”
“That sounds fine.”
We all sat down on the couches in there and a couple of us went up to order some smoothies.
I was sitting there and their was this picture of a girl on the wall that looked really familiar.
“Does this girl work here,” I asked Karen.
“Ya she is here up stairs right now.”
“Did she live in Oaxaca last year by any chance?”
“Ya she moved down here about a year ago.”
I knew it. I yelled to the rest of the team. We had kind of a game going on to see who would be the first person out of our group to meet someone we knew randomly. I had met Katy very briefly in Oaxaca, Mexico a year earlier. She had gone to the school I went to the year before I did. She had come up to visit one time and I ended up meeting her there. A group of the guys and I also helped move her into a different house one time. So she came down and it was fun catching up.
A couple minutes later Mike the pastor came down to. We all introduced ourselves and then told him our story and predicament. He told us that he would be happy to help us. He offered his home for us to stay in and we were really excited to have this opportunity. We were going to go their later in the afternoon so we all kind of split up for the day. I went to the Market with Katy and had a wonderful time there.
We got back about 5 and all got our gear and began our walk across town to their home. On the way there we ran into their family. His wife Nancy was there and their daughter Amber. Amanda began talking to Amber and found out that their son was the fiance of her roommate, Ally from Guatemala City last year. She had talked to Ally a couple weeks earlier and knew that her fiance lived in Antigua, but did not know who he was. And as it turned out Ally and Matt, their son were coming to stay that night. So now Amanda was going to get to surprise her old roommate.
As we got closer to where their house was I started to realize that we were actually going to the house that Brad, the guy we met in the morning working on his cable had told us about. We were going to stay with Mike the pastor that Brad had told us to meet.
So we all got settled in James in I in our tent in the yard and the girls in a room inside, and we had a wonderful night of fellowship with this amazing family. After a couple hours Matt and Ally came and Ally was so surprised that Amanda was here staying in the house.
All in all it was one of the craziest days I have ever been involved with.
I don’t really understand how everything works together. I believe we serve a God who loves showing us how big He is. He loves messing with our plans and then giving us better ones. I wish I could explain it all, but I can’t, so I will just leave it at that. It is amazing to see what happens when you ask God for a place to stay.
We have been helping out here for the weekend painting their church. And a couple of the girls have been helping out with babies at the local hospital. Monday we are going to help build a school in local village and then possibly going out to the lake on Tuesday. Talk to you all soon.
