This. Is. Our. Life.

This is the story you have been waiting for! It’s long, so I have illustrated it with many pictures from the adventure! 

Kyla,
Janina and I rented a car and went to Northern Ireland. We had friends
of friends who lived up there and were willing to let us stay with them
for free! We were pumped! The immensity of the freedom of having our own
car was all around us, it was intoxicating. 

After
having the car for four days and having a chance to mix a little
exploration and business, we were finally to the day that had us
traveling the long way back down to Dublin. The plan was to take the
Causeway down (the scenic route) and make it to Dublin sometime after
dark. We would then stay with Team Reckless before heading to the
airport the next day to drop off the car and fly to Budapest, Hungary. 

Everything
was going as planned, we slept in, finished packing and then drove into
town to say bye to Ros. The clouds were looming overhead, but we just
asked Jesus to move the clouds along so that we could see the
extraordinary sights. We stopped along the side of the road several
times, just to play around and take pictures. 

We
were having a blast! We ended up stopping at Giant’s Causeway and were
going to walk as far as we could in the few short hours that we had. It
was beautiful, but not long after starting our long trek it started
raining! Not just a mild drizzle, it was beginning to pour! So we
followed the example of the sheep in the field next to us and we sought
shelter. 

The
rain looked like it was going to stick around for a while, so we
decided to get back on the road and try to find a less rainy adventure

…if we only knew what was coming!

Even
though Ireland gets rain almost every day, there are still parts on the
road where there is no drain off for water. That means after having a
down pour like we had just experienced, there were several places in the
road that were flooded. 

We
weren’t worried. We passed through many places where the water had
covered the road. We came to a point where we could see a car turning
around on the top of a hill. We decided to go and see why they turned
around. At the top of the hill all we could see was a little water on
the sides of the road, but we could still see the middle of the road. We
all decided that we could definitely make it. 

What
we hadn’t realized was that there was a huge puddle/lake looming just
around the bend in the road. About halfway through the puddle/lake we
realized that this was a BAD idea! The car stalled and we were stuck!
Opening the doors was not an option as water had already started to seep
into the car. Kyla threw the car into neutral so we could roll down the
windows and Janina and I crawled out. The water was up to our knees,
but since we are super strong, we started pushing the car. 

Kyla
had honked the horn and one of the neighbors had come out to help us.
Between the four of us we were able to get the car out of the puddle and
to a parking spot. The guy, George, has a son who has mechanical
skills, so he called him out. 

As
we bailed the water out of the car, Craig came out and looked at the
engine. Because of water getting into the air filter we were not able to
start the car again. He was worried that water had gotten into the
engine and mixed with the oil, which we knew was not going to dry in the
few hours that we had. 

George
and Craig ended up being our Knights in Shining Armor! They invited us
into their home, let us change, gave us tea and dessert! Then they got
online and found out that we could catch a train from Coleraine to
Belfast, then jump on a bus from Belfast to the Dublin airport. 

To
catch the next rain we had to hurry because it was leaving in 20
minutes. So we quickly gathered all of our stuff and jammed it into
Craig’s tiny car and off we went. Half way to the train station we
encountered another puddle. Craig’s car was already lower to the ground
because of all the weight from us and our packs, so we encouraged him to
find another way around. 

He
then jumped out of the car and waded through the water to find out how
deep it was. He was satisfied that we would make it, so we slowly crept
through the water. The small delay along with the time it took us to get
our stuff together made us late for the train. We had an hour to kill
before the next train left, so we found a place to eat dinner. 

We
had Fish and Chips one last time before leaving Ireland. It was really
good! Craig was completely embarrassed by the fact that we wanted to buy
his dinner for helping us out so much, he was truly a gentleman. It was
crazy how God used that ordeal so that we could talk to him. He is
getting ready to go around the world for a year! He’ll be coming through
the States at some point, so we told him to drop by:)

We
eventually got on the train and made it to Belfast by 8:55pm. We
hurried through the station and found the bus to Dublin. We didn’t have
any Pounds left, so we asked the bus driver if he would take Euro. He
said he only took Euro, and we got on the bus. The bus left at 9pm, we
were literally moving as we found our seat and sat down! We would have
had to wait another hour, which doesn’t seem too long, but we were
exhausted and we were told it would be another 3-3.5 hours to Dublin. 

We
were planning on going to the Dublin airport and spending the night
there since that’s where the bus was going. But we found out that the
bus was actually going to one more stop after the airport and it was
exactly where we needed to go! The place the bus stopped was only a
couple blocks away from where Reckless was staying! 

We
were able to shower, use the internet and get a good nights sleep in
before having to travel for another two days straight! God’s provision
shined through in many ways that day!

You
can tell a lot about a persons character in a situation like this. What
is revealed to me was that all three of us girls are really chill! We
were laughing the entire time, because what else are you going to do? No
one panicked, yelled, or got angry. What could have been a very
stressful situation ended up all working out very smoothly! Praise God
for the many ways He saved us and brought all the details together!