I don’t usually share much about travel days, but as we were making our way from Swaziland to Argentina I felt like the Lord was teaching me something. Plus, this will give you all a window into what those transcontinental travel days look like for us.
We left on Friday morning, traveling by bus for five hours to Johannesburg, South Africa. From there we took a flight for almost eight hours to Dubai. We had about 20 minutes in the airport to try to find a bathroom so we could change clothes and brush our teeth before hopping on our next flight (about 14 hours) to Rio de Janeiro.
Even though we had already been on that plane for 14 hours, we sat there for another hour or two while they prepped the plane for it’s next leg, which was our 3 hours flight to Buenos Aires. Upon arriving in Buenos Aires, we went through customs and got our bags. Then we camped out in the airport overnight before catching a bus the next afternoon.
(Here’s what our slumber party in the airport looked like. Special thanks to my teammate and master logistics coordinator, Rachel Kois, for this video!)
It took us nearly 18 hours to travel from Buenos Aires to Mendoza, where we were picked up on Monday morning by our ministry host.
Those days aren’t typical on the Race, but they are definitely part of it. So now that you have an idea of what travel can look like for us, let me share what I learned.
Travel, even on a much smaller scale, can leave you weary and worn out. We often arrive jet-lagged, and it usually takes some time to adjust to a new time zone and a new place. Getting from one place to the next can be exhausting, even if you’re just a passenger.
I wasn’t the one flying the plane. I wasn’t driving the bus. Still, my body was tired.
I think sometimes the same things happens to us in life. Especially during this eleven-month journey, but really for the rest of my life, I want to surrender control to God to direct my steps. He is the one driving, but even as he is taking me where I need to go, I can still find myself weary on the way.
It is fitting then that I am reading the story of Jesus meeting the two disciples on the road to Emmaus during our first week of ministry here in Argentina (Luke 24:13-35).
It was the first Easter, and two of Jesus’s disciples were walking along the road when the resurrected Christ joins them on their journey. But they don’t recognize him. He questions them about their sad faces, and when they share the sequence of events that has swept Jerusalem by storm, he begins to show them in the scriptures how all these things were foretold by the prophets.
As the disciples near their destination, they plead with him to stay with them instead of continuing on. He goes in to eat with them. When he blesses and breaks the bread and gives it to them, suddenly they recognize Jesus for who he is. And then he’s gone! Just like that, he disappears.
But they run back to tell the other disciples that he is risen indeed! Verse 35 says, “Then they told what had happened on the road, and how he was known to them in the breaking of the bread” (ESV).
I realized as I was reading this story about some of Jesus’s other disciples who were on a journey that even though they didn’t recognize him, he was there the whole time. He was teaching them things about himself, and they were spending time with him.
Jesus is with us on our journeys, every step of the way, even when we don’t discern his presence. He is revealing things about himself as we walk, and yes, when we look back, we can say along with these two, “Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road, while he opened to us the Scriptures?” (Luke 24:32).
I don’t always feel God’s presence on travel days. Often, those can be the times when I feel like it’s hardest to see him working and moving. But I love this story and the reminder that he is walking the road with us. When we invite him in and sit down with us, he will bless the bread, break it, give it to us, and we will see him for who he is.
So wherever God is taking you right now, even if you’re weary and discouraged like the disciples on the road (and like me at the end of a long travel day), know that he is walking with you and speaking to you. Trust him to open your eyes and make himself known to you in the breaking of the bread as you enter into fellowship with him and the Body of Christ around you.
