“Then he sent them out to tell everyone about the Kingdom of God and to heal the sick. ‘Take nothing for your journey,’ he instructed them. ‘ Don’t take a walking stick, a travelers’ bag, food, money or even a change of clothes. Wherever you go, stay in the same house until you leave town…'” (Luke 9:1-4)
Above is part of the command that Jesus gave the 12 disciples when he sent them out to tell everyone about the Kingdom. The disciples left with nothing and just trusted that God would provide their food, clothing, shelter, etc. While we did not come out of The Race with nothing, in just the 6 weeks we’ve been gone there has been several days where we didn’t know where we were going to sleep or what our transportation was going to be, and just had to trust that God was going to provide.
Last week, we drove to a town about 1.5 hours from Wujal Wujal, called Cooktown to meet a contact. We were meeting the contact at a Café, so we parked, and then quickly learned our car wouldn’t start. Then, we found out that some things had come up so our contact was going to be about 6 hours later than we had expected. We also didn’t know where we were going to stay.
The first way God provided for us, was the café we were going to be waiting at had air conditioning. We haven’t had air conditioning since we got to Australia, and there summer here is a lot more hot and humid than a GA summer, so it was a nice surprise. Secondly, there ended up being a mechanic right down the road who was able to come tow our car and had it fixed in about 4 hours. The really cool thing that happened that day though, was how we found our place to stay. There was no bathroom in the café we were in, so we had ended up going over to this small “hardware” store a couple of times, that a couple runs. Each time we went in, we talked a little bit, and they started to ask questions about what we were doing and what the World Race is, etc. They told us that there was a Baptist church right down the street and they wanted to give us the pastor’s contact info incase we needed anything while visiting town. Lindsey and I told them, “Perfect, we actually need a place to stay tonight.” So we were thinking we would be able to camp at the church or something. When they heard this, instead of calling the pastor they called their mum and dad (Beth and Ron). A few minutes later, they had given us directions to their parents house. So we showed up, they said we were more than welcome to stay with them. How often have you seen 8 complete strangers be welcomed into someone’s house, be offered a place to sleep, and breakfast? I know I’ve never done anything like that. Then, the next morning, Beth was telling us a story about how they came to live in that house. Apparently when they first moved in, one of Beth’s friends had given them a verse from the Bible that basically told her God was going to send people to her and she was to welcome them into her house. So she said when she got the phone call she knew that she had to let us stay. It is just so cool to wake up each day and see how God is going to take care of us that day.
