“Praise be to the God and our Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in Christ.” – Ephesians 1:3
Friday morning we all hopped on what we thought was going to be a school bus, but was actually a decent mini bus. Where were we headed? We weren’t sure… all we knew is that we were going through the Sahara Desert. Along the way we thought we were going to have to pick up a police escort, but through the grace of God we were able to pass through all 4 posts free and clear. Well… I say free and clear… at one of the post we did get stopped because they saw a few blond headed foreigners in our bus. The two drivers got out to talk to the officers when we realized the plague of flies that was put on Egypt… well… they never all went away. Within second our entire bus was full of obnoxious flies and it was hot. About the time we were all about to go crazy our drivers got back in the bus and said they paid the officers off. They gave them 20 Egyptian pounds (less than $4.00 USD) and they let us go.
So… I’m going to try and paint a picture for you of what was going through our heads on our very hot 6hr bus ride through the desert to the middle of Egypt. We had been told about the “family” living (see Kim K.’s previous blog) and were told that we were all (23 of us) staying at the bishop’s house.
Picture this… a house made of mud with animals pretty much completely taking the house over. All 23 of us living on the 2nd and maybe 3rd floor, a couple of bed rooms … probably for the married couples and Anna Marie, so the rest of us would be sleeping where? Well, pretty much anywhere we could find and on top of each other as one big happy family. Think about this… one shower… yeah right, for 23 people… so what does that mean? You only get a shower every 3 days or so. Living in a mud house with 23 people in very close proximity with the scorching heat all day to bake the house where you can’t sleep at night or in that case, even do anything. If all of this is not bad enough (excuse me… I shouldn’t say bad… challenging) we are on house arrest. We can not go anywhere without being escorted by the military. do you have the picture now?… are you with me here?… this is what we thought (yes… I say thought) we were getting ourselves into and then this happened…
Yeah… that’s right… we are staying in a mansion… aka “the palace”. When we walked into this place we couldn’t speak. None of us knew what to say, how to respond, or in that case remember our manners enough to be worthy of living in a place like this. We have been traveling the world for almost a year. Have lived in scenarios like the one I described above and feel we are too dirty to even set foot in this place.
All I have to say is this… the Lord has heard our cries. He has seen (and been) with us while we were sleeping on the side of the road at the train station, on those ferry boats, in the parks, on buses, the many many nights that we have been camping underneath the stars, and the nights that we didn’t sleep at all. He has seen (and been) with us while we were stressing over finances and saving that penny… and He faithfully provided.
We are so blessed. He has provided his princes and princesses with a palace to live in. We all get our own bed, we all pretty much have our own hot showers (2-4 people share), we have internet, and we are eating like kings and queens. We could not ask for anything better than this and the best part is… we didn’t even ask for it. We were prepared for the worst and the Lord completely showed up and reminded us how faithful He is and gave us the absolute BEST.
Wow… He never ceases to Amaze me.
“In all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose.” –Romans 8:28
