It’s 6:50am on Easter Sunday. My alarm goes off and I quickly shuffle to find my phone to hit the snooze button. I stretch out in my hammock and try to get comfortable for just five more minutes of sleep before that annoying ringtone blares again. As I’m laying there I feel a sense that says “It’s time to get up.” I find my phone again and turn the alarm off so it won’t disturb the others sleeping outside in their hammocks. While I’m getting out of my hammock, Britt comes outside, smiles, and says good morning. At that point I’m not even awake enough to formulate words. I then put on my shoes and meet up with Britt and Nicky to go for our morning run, still not 100% aware of what’s going on. Nicky always says “It’s best to run early in the morning, before your body or mind knows what it’s doing.” Ain’t that the truth. As we are approaching the gate, I think to myself “Why am I doing this? I am not a runner and I am already feeling sore.” I pray for strength and hear The Holy Spirit say to me “You can do this.” So I put my headphones in, kick up the music and start trotting along. The views here are amazing. As much as I hate running, there is nothing like running on a dirt road with nothing but you and God’s beautiful creation all around. My thighs start to burn, but I look up, see the tree topped mountains, smell the sugarcane and start to pray. “Lord, thank you for the beautiful things that you have blessed my eyes to see this morning. Please give me your strength and get me through this run. I need you.” I keep plugging along, attempting to keep up with girls, who are avid runners, as we go over hills and bends in the Honduran countryside. Finally, we approach the church that was our halfway point last time. My legs scream for joy as we stop. Then, Britt says “do you want to go a little further this time?” I hesitate and say “Yeah,sure.” We go around the bend and see another hill. I think to myself “This is a mistake.” But again something inside me said, “Keep going. You can make it.” I continued to shuffle up the hill and discover that it is a consistent incline. Britt stops and ahead and says that we have gone another half of a kilometer, then asks if we wanted to go another half. We agree and trek on. Shortly after, as we are all walking up the hill that seems to have no peak, I look to my right and see miles of trees and mountains in the distance. It is breathtaking. After about 10 more minutes of walking uphill we see the peak and finally we reach it. We each take a minute to catch our breath and let our muscles recover. We see a man walking our direction carrying brooms on his shoulder. As he passes us, he says to the three of us “Dios le bendiga!” Which means God bless you in spanish. I replied with “Igual” which is used to say “same to you.” He stops, smiles, and starts speaking more Spanish that was above my pay grade. Britt says “maybe we should offer to carry his brooms.” I got the same feeling so I ask, in my limited and broken Spanish, if I could help him, all while doing whatever motion I thought would communicate that best. I then put the brooms on my shoulder and we begin to walk back towards town with him. It then dawned on me that we were easily 2.5 miles back to the ranch where we were living and closer to 4 miles all the way to town. We also had no idea how long this man had been walking before we crossed paths. I think it must have been a while, because there were no houses or shacks in sight. We continued to walk and he tells us that he is 83 years old. Wow. 83 years old and he had every intent to walk as far as he needed to, so that he could sell the brooms, which he made by hand might I add, so that he could provide for his family. The most precious thing about it was the joy that this man had. He smiles the whole time and laughs periodically. He may have been laughing at me a bit but that’s ok. He spoke to us a lot on our walk. We tried to piece together what he was saying as we went along. It was challenging, but it got to the point where we realized that he was sharing about his relationship with The Lord and telling us that He was his strength. How beautiful? We continue to walk and legitimately out of nowhere a school bus comes behind us, packed full of people. The driver stops and signals for the man to get on. We said our goodbyes to him and watch as the bus bounces along the dirt road and it’s almost as if it were a movie. I think to myself “What just happened?” The significance of that encounter didn’t hit me until after he left and we finished our walk back. We met an angel of The Lord this morning, in the form of a man, walking on a dirt road to fulfill a task that had been placed on him. Like Jesus, he carried the burden on his back, all for the purpose of paying the debts of the ones he loves. The three of us were given a gift this morning. It wasn’t money or any material possession. It was a tangible encounter with the Heavenly realm. Whether this man was an angel of The Lord or Jesus himself, we were truly blessed with the presence of The Risen King on Resurrection Sunday and I cannot express the joy and feeling of awe that experience has given me. It’s uncanny how many times on this race that we get to be ministered to when we think that we are the ones who will be doing the ministering. That’s how God works sometimes though, isn’t it? In ways I couldn’t imagine. Praise to the Risen King! Happy Easter.
