You hear stories of God taking care of us in magnificent, jaw dropping ways. The kind of narrative that will take any doubt in God’s provision and lack of divine hand in the every day and crushes it into smithereens.
I have two of those stories for you.
Story One:
On our missions team or squad we have designated roles people have been empowered with to serve the team and grow further. Leading up to changes, I felt like I was about to be called up and higher to a new role. Sure enough, I was asked to be a new co-logistics leader.
Logistics in a nutshell means transporting the whole team of 19 from point A to point B. It’s in the hands of the logistics leaders to figure out how we are traveling to our next ministries in new countries while staying under budget. There’s more to it but that’s the gist.
An example of this is the squad/team needed to travel from Zimbabwe to Gaborone, Botswana in order to connect with our next ministries and ministry hosts.
I’m actually terrified of this role but also confident that I’m capable of doing well especially with my amazing teammate who has been doing it for the last 4 months.
To start travel day we woke up at 5:30AM to board a mini bus that promised to take us straight to Gaborone, Botswana. At this point, I was a 24 hour newbie to the logistics role. The last logistics duo on my team had planned this all out and I was hitching a ride on the plan pretty much not knowing what I was supposed to do.
We squeezed on the bus and as rain slammed down on the roof and leaked through the door to smack us in the face, we started our trek to Botswana.
It was supposed to be a 12 hour bus ride. Easy peasy.
Border crossings are of the devil. Just kidding but really. But! We’ve always found issues at the borders of countries as we try to cross over. The crossing from Zimbabwe to Botswana actually seemed smooth this time though. What a relief.
That was true until our driver informed us that his bus was not allowed to go into Botswana. He told us he made a mistake and because of that mistake needed paperwork for the vehicle that he didn’t have. He wouldn’t be able to get the papers until Monday and it was currently Saturday.
We were at least 5 hours or more away from Gaborone at that point.
My logistics partner Jess, myself, our new squad leaders, old squad leaders, and mentor all huddled together to devise a plan. First thing was to stay calm and not panic. We started bouncing around ideas like trying to board this giant public bus parked near us, staying overnight in a town nearby, taxis, trains. We rattled off a lot of options but none sounded surefire or ideal.
Our mentor then mentioned prayer. We should pray.
We prayed for a miracle. We asked God to help us find a way to make it to Gaborone and to meet our new ministries safely and all together.
We opened our eyes and waited. I snacked on lemon cookies and Jess ate a pizza because at that moment, there was nothing to do but be patient as our driver tried to figure things out for us.
Our faces were priceless as a bus with only one passenger came rolling in to let one person off. My co-leader being bold rushed over to the driver who was in his early 30’s with a bright yellow shirt on. We asked if he could take us to Gaborone. He said he could take us an hour to a nearby town called Francistown, he had 30 seats, a trailer for our stuff, he was willing to wait for us to figure things out still, and was asking an insanely inexpensive price.
We almost cried as we realized our prayer was so quickly answered. Obviously, that doesn’t always happen.
We scurried back to our huddle and found that a driver was telling us prices for the giant public bus that was near us. Eventually we found out that wasn’t an option at all because it was completely full. We weren’t phased because we knew God was working some way, somehow.
The young man in the yellow shirt that rolled in at the perfect time went hurrying across he border. On the back of his shirt it read “Angel.” We found that to be the perfect description for him.
Our drivers were still gone somewhere desperately trying to reconnect us with a different transportation. We again prayed as a group specifically that our drivers would return because we wanted to plan something with the guy with the yellow Angel shirt.
We prayed together that our drivers would return and before we could finish the prayer someone said “they’re coming!”. We snapped our gazes around to find that there were our drivers walking beside the guy in the yellow angel shirt. What?!
They had together arranged a bus for us that would take us to Gaborone, Botswana in one straight shot. No overnight stays, no waiting, just straight to our destination.
I was stunned and amazed.
Even though the bus broke down once, the total trip to Gaborone turned from 12 hours to 24 hours, our second bus driver was lost in Gaborone and Google Maps rescued us, we still arrived to Botswana safely and all were picked up by our ministry hosts at 5:00AM in the morning.
We made it. Not on our own abilities but because of the tender and specific care God provides to His children. Now my new team of 4 men and 2 other women are about to begin serving alongside Campus Crusade for Christ or CRU which is also a ministry in the United States. Even though goodbyes to my first team were difficult, I am eager to see what the Lord has with this next team of amazing people.
Story Two:
On January 2, I still needed $2,970 to be fully funded to continue on this journey on international missions. The final deadline for the total $17,617 was fast approaching on January 31st.
I tried to maintain peace but there was slight doubt creeping in that $3,000 could be raised while I was gone from home. I held tightly to confidence because I’d already been in awe that $14,647 was raised. At the beginning of the World Race, I believed that was close to impossible. It was also the reason I almost said no to leaving for 11 months.
A small, crazy, faithful piece of me decided to trust though that if I truly felt I was being lead to leave, the money wouldn’t hold me back from going or from staying.
Within 2 weeks after January 2, $2,285 was raised!
On January 24th, we briefly stopped at a random coffee shop and I discovered that I was fully funded.
I was provided more than enough.
In this process, I’ve been brought to tears and cries of joy over the generosity of people and the generous heart of God. I fully believe there are several reasons why I became fully funded before that last deadline.
- God is the ultimate, faithful provider
- Other’s faith in God and desire to give for His name
- Kindness and love from people
- Persistence and support from my own parents
- Prayers from home and also corporate prayer with my team every single day
- My reluctant willingness to do hard things including being humbled constantly when asking others.
If you are in one of those bullets, thank you for keeping me here. Thank you for believing.
