Mondays are our rest days and the day that we decided to go to the city for wi-fi. We don’t have internet in our village, but we have to post blogs and Journey Markers each week. Plus, we want to keep in touch with our families. We were told to be ready at 8:00 am to leave for the city. Our expectations were that we would go into a city, go to an ATM, get internet at a cyber cafe, go to the supermarket, eat lunch, and come back to the village.
Yeah, about that…
We first waited at the bus stop for over 2 hours. We rode on a crowded bus to a city, then we got in a taxi and went to the bank…only to find out that the ATM was broken, and we would have to go to another ATM. We found another one outside a gas station…and it was broken as well. Our next option was to send two people in Abidjan to get money for everyone. At this point, I began praying that Jesus would make a way for us to use the ATM and get everything done that we needed to get done. The ATM finally started working, praise God! By this time, it was around 1 or 2 pm, and we finally got to go to our host’s sister’s house for lunch. It was so good!!! Next, we had to go to the dressmaker’s house to be sized for the dresses we were getting made. (Those are both whole other stories that I will tell later). We thought it was time for internet, except we first had to go to several houses and were asked to pray at each house. We decided to go to the supermarket before the cyber cafe, so we went to a small store and the pharmacy in search of several items. FINALLY, we made it to the cyber cafe around 5 pm. The internet at this cafe was slow and stopped working several times, but at least I was able to get the three things done that I needed to get done (even if it did take 2 hours) and charge most of my devices. What we thought would be a quick-ish trip to the city turned into an all-day affair, that at times was very trying. Thankfully, God has been teaching me to go with the flow, so I honestly didn’t feel very frustrated about it. This is Africa, and I have come to terms with the fact that the culture here, and in most other countries, is very different from the culture in America.
Our (unexpected) adventure didn’t end with the cyber cafe, because we weren’t able to go back to the village. This is where the unexpected blessings began to flow. We were going to try to take the bus back to the village, but we found out that someone had gotten on one of the buses and stolen money from the passengers. That could have been us, but God was watching out for us, and He protected us from being robbed or worse! Instead of trying to go back to the village, we stayed in the house of our host’s friend. We took a shower in a very nice bathroom, which was super refreshing. We were given mattresses to sleep on and a fan that kept the room cool. We also had a church service with the family, which was so fun and a great way to end the long day! I was told right before the service that I was supposed to give the message, which kind of sent me into a mini panic for a second…but God gave me the topic and the words to say!!! The next morning, one of my teammates told me as I was coming out of bedroom that we were going to dance. Our host handed us tissues, which I found out were to wave around like ribbons. We danced and worshiped, and it was so fun! We later were served a meal, that included a chicken killed specifically for us. The generosity of the people and the love they showed us turned this crazy two days into a time that showed me the abounding faithfulness of God!
