I’m on the World Race! Can you believe it! I honestly can’t believe I had the nerve to stay in my seat at the airport and not run back outside and tell my mom I changed my mind. It took us a while to get everyone and all their gear transported from the airport in Ft. Lauderdale to the Romanian Baptist Church where we were staying via the public bus, but we did and not too many people were upset to share a bus with us. We slept on the floor and were allowed $5 per person per day to eat. Yep! That’s $5 in Ft. Lauderdale for an entire day. It can be done! We enjoyed some great stories from the road and some wonderful times of prayer and worship.
When the time came to leave, we loaded up our unsuspecting bodies with the extra 70+ pounds of gear we had and walked around a half mile/mile to the new bus stop. We rode the public bus over to a train station and made our way down to Miami. After the train, we were blessed to just catch the last shuttle of the day to the airport. We got all 42 members of “D” squad, their gear and a handful of Floridans onto the shuttle. We got to the airport and spread out in the first cubbyhole we could find. Needless to say it was a rough night of very little sleep, but that will become common and an experience I will never forget. The next day we loaded up on the plane and headed to Guatemala City, Guatemala. Once there, we crashed in a corner while our fearless leaders found us rides to our separate ministry sites. We found a really nice guy who offered his little van to take us to the bus station. Thanks to a miraculous God, we loaded 13 of us and all our gear into a 9 passenger van. It was so fun driving through the HUGE city and having everyone stare at us. Honestly, everywhere we go, people stare at us! But we got to our bus and headed to Puerto Barrios. It was the 3:00pm bus that normally arrives no later than 8:30pm. We however arrived about 10:30pm. I’m not sure how long we were on the bus, but it was at least 6 hours. We arrived safe and sound with all our stuff and enjoyed our first meal in Guatemala….spaghetti and white corn tortillas! 🙂
So we are here and we are blessed, but it does come at a price. In Matthew 19, we read the story of the rich young ruler. The young man comes to Jesus and asks Him how he can have eternal life. Jesus tells him to keep the commandments. The young man replies that he has kept all the commandments and wants to know what else to do. Jesus replied to him, “If you would be perfect, go, sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me. When the young man heard this, he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions. And Jesus said to His disciples, “Truly, I say to you, only with difficulty will a rich person enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.” It’s not that God has anything against the rich. There will be plenty of rich people in heaven, but we all have a tendency to cling to our stuff, our idols in this life. For some, it’s material items or people or consumable products. For others it’s intangible things like attention, comfort, or familiarity. All these things we have laid down to follow where God would lead. It’s not easy. (It didn’t hit me till I turned my phone off and I knew I no longer had instant access to texting and Facebook! That was a hard moment!) But I know it will be worth it. Here I go through the eye of the needle….can’t wait to see what’s on the other side!
