Flying from Malawi to Ecuador was a doozy. First we had a 24 hour layover in South Africa and then about 3 more layovers after that before we arrived in Quito, Ecuador. Our first layover like I said was a 24 hour one so the airline bought us rooms in a nearby hotel that night. My squad and I had been anxiously waiting for the day we could go to South Africa and go shopping and see what all the fuss is about. I must admit, I did have some culture shock as we flew in; peering outside my tiny window at the giant skyscrapers, highways, and many many cars on the road. To give you a better understanding, we have been living in some of the poorest countries in Africa that contain no skyscrapers or any sort of traffic. I was ecstatic to go shopping to all the many stores they had in the mall. I was also anxiously waiting for my precious Starbucks which I had not had in 4 months.
We arrived at the airport, got our luggage, and waited for a shuttle to finally take us to the hotel. We called a Uber to take us to the mall because there’s not much public transportation and Johannesburg is a very dangerous city. After shopping for a few hours my group was getting rather tired so we decide to call an Uber and head back home. I called a Uber and they said he had arrived but we were at the wrong entrance and did not know how to get to the right one. I cancelled that one and finally found the right entrance and called another one. We pile into the car and head back to the hotel. Everyone in the car was talking to one another except for the driver, he was sitting there very quite listening to our conversations. I felt the Lord prompting me to ask him how he was doing, so I did. Turns out we got probably the most energetic, friendly driver in South Africa I’m pretty sure, so the conversations began. He was telling us about himself and then he asked what we were doing in South Africa. I began to explain to him what we are doing here and how we’re traveling missionaries spreading God’s love to everyone we meet. At this moment the atmosphere completely changed in the car! This man became so absolutely overjoyed he could hardly contain himself. I believe his exact words were ” I HAVE MISSIONARIES IN MY CAR?! WOW THIS IS SO AMAZING!” He was so excited, it was a site to see. He began saying “I feel like I am Abraham when the 3 angels visited him but I have 4 of them in my car, wow I am so blessed.” Over the course of several minutes we got into some great conversations about the Lord and the Bible and we found out he was a very strong believer and had so much knowledge about the Bible.
After many conversations later as we were drawing closer to home I asked him if we could pray for him. He responded, yes I would love if you prayed for me but first I must bless you all. He was so excited and talking so very fast and with his strong accent it was hard to understand every word he was saying but I thought he said, I want to pull over and buy you donuts and fruit. Now it is currently about 8:30pm and we had all just eaten dinner so donuts was not the most delicious sounding food group at that moment. I leaned over to my squad mate sitting next to me and said, I think he’s gonna buy us food. She didn’t hear him say that so she was shocked and said no he’s not gonna do that. Well much to our surprise he pulls over the exit before our hotel and drives through a McDonalds drive thru. He pulls up to the window and says, okay what are you having. We didn’t want to be rude and tell him we had already eaten so we asked for an ice cream cone. He responded, “NO, NO , you must eat a real big meal. Ice cream is not a meal.” We begin to smile at one another because we knew God was blessing us through this man. My squad mate and I decided to order the smallest chicken nuggets, now I don’t know if any of you go to McDonalds often but I believe the small chicken nuggets is like a 5 piece or 7 piece, well he orders us a 20 piece! Then he looked at the 2 guys in the car and asked what they were getting they replied, we’ll have chicken nuggets too. Again he replied NO, that is a girls meal you must order a mans meal. I’m not sure what exactly they got but some kind of Big Mac burger with fries and a drink.
Pulling out of the drive thru we were expressing our gratitude in every way possible when he began to explain that he didn’t have that much money so he said “I can never go to America and travel and be a missionary like you but all I can do is bless you. “At that moment we began to explain how you don’t need to travel to be a mission. You can be a missionary anywhere, because being a missionary simply means telling others about Jesus. After a few minutes of talking he began to say, “so I could be a missionary in South Africa? I could be a missionary in my car as a uber driver. I could tell people about Jesus when they get in my car!” I could see the excitement he was begging to have as he got the perspective that anyone can tell others about Jesus, it’s not just Americans. After several minutes later, we arrived back at our hotel. We asked him what his prayer request was and he said, “I want to be like Elijah, I want to have boldness in my prayers like he had.” After we prayed for him we asked him if we could take a picture with him I have attached it below. It is not the best quality picture because of the lighting but I wanted you to see the total joy this man had on his face as we left.
Although we were in South Africa for 24 hours, we had no assigned ministry because it was just a layover, but we were able to share and encourage someone in the Lord and that is what the Lord calls us to do, use our everyday lives to find people who need the Lord. I got back to my room that night so filled with the Lord and still shocked with what had just happened. The Lord spoke to my heart saying, serve me wherever you are and I will bless you abundantly with more than you will ever need.
