And God gave us Grace…
To start, I’d just like to say our squad’s theme for the rest of the year is,
“Hear the voice of God and Obey.”
We started the month not knowing how we were going to get to our next ministry location. Many options were proving to be too expensive or logistically not working out. In prayer one mornging we asked for God to help us and some started making phone calls to churches to see if there was anyone or anyway they could take us to where we needed to go. It was unsuccessful by in our eyes but God was happy His children were obedient and were actively pursuing Him and a need we needed met. We ended up renting vehicles to drive from Joburg, South Africa to Labatse, Botswana. Somehow we got a little lost and ended up going through the Capital of South Africa, Petoria instead of around it which ended up being ok in the scheme of things. I was co-poilet and wasn’t doing a very good job of it… but it’s South Africa and everything’s a bit crazy. All was going well until we came to a road-block. We would have had a straight shot to where we needed to get to but now we were detoured to places unknown. We stopped to use the restroom and Dave got new directions for the detour. He was told to go about 20-25 km till we see an ABSA sign (credit card or bank location) which we were to take a left. Apparently there was supposed to be some activity in the area as well. We were to see a blue tires sign and a tavern, take a right. Up, up, up and down, down, down, a mountain, something about a zigzag road and I think that was it. Ok? First we saw the ABSA sign but what did activity mean? There was a man crawling across the road playing chicken or something with an oncoming car, which was weird but that’s about it for activity. We took the left and drove quite some ways without seeing any of the other indicators. We also didn’t really see people that we thought we could really pull over and talk to, to ask for new directions and the like.
We finally came to a T in the road and saw that it was the road we were looking for, N4. Our original road. This is the road we were to take a right on but just to make sure we were going in the correct direction. We saw 2 people on the side of the road and for some reason decided to ask them just in case. The man was in a brown jacket and baseball hat and the woman in a large red coat. As we pull over I get out of the van because we pulled slightly ahead of where they were standing and yelled to them “Labatse?” And I pointed to the right. As they said “Yes” they started running toward the van. When I noticed this I was like, “ok” and “no, no, I just needed to know if this was the right way.” I put my hands up to hold them back trying to let them know we weren’t going to take anyone with us. I saw them stop running and then I thought, Why not? I asked our van if we could give them a ride. They may have been shocked at my question but looked around at each other and said, “Sure”. They started making room and I waved down the two to come on in and she held up one finger, indicating she was the only one coming along. I said, “ok.”
When they got up to me and the van I saw the man she was with and looked at his baseball hat that read, I LOVE JESUS. When I saw that I told them, “We love Jesus too!” and gave her a hug and here’s what that looked like.
WATCH VIDEO…
The man was helping make sure she got a ride safely. She got in the car and went on to talk about her need to get to the town of Kanye for her father’s funeral. She said if we brought her to Labatse she would have to hitch a ride to Kanye which was very far away. When she told me this it didn’t settle well with me because I didn’t want her hitching a ride in the dark. We got to the border and ended up needing her help because they wouldn’t let us through without an address to where we were going. We couldn’t get a hold of our ministry contact and could have been in a pickle had it not been for Grace and the address to her father’s place. The border people let us use hers because she said we were her friends. She told me, “we are all children of God”. I agreed and was in awe of God allowing us to help one of His children and in return she was helping us. I could tell she was getting anxious about needing to get to the next town because it was getting dark. I asked her more about how far away it was and then asked our van if they were ok taking another detour to get her to where she needed to go. Everyone was fine and we checked with the other car and I heard Di say, “take her”. I was glad. I know she was too. It was going to take about an hour or so out of the way but we didn’t care, we’d been on the road about 6 or so hours by that time anyway. She had a cell phone we were able to use to call our ministry contact to let him know about what time we thought we’d get to our final destination. He said, “perfect” in our 5 dropped call conversation. We brought Grace all the way to her father’s house, I carried her bag in with her and met her family. They were sitting around talking, some were cooking, kids were running around and it made me realize family is the same all around the world. They were enjoying each other’s company with a peace about the home, a sense of comfort and joy amongst a time that I knew was hard for them. They knew where their father was. In heaven with Jesus and they were rejoicing about him going home to his Father. She said she wanted her family to meet children of God. Children that blessed her with a ride home.
They offered us bread for dinner and even gave us the whole basket with it.
As we drove away we were filled with joy, so happy to help a sister out. As bread disappeared from the basket it revealed a message that warmed our hearts. It said, “God is Love”… i had a picture of it… but it was deleted… oh well…
God answered our prayers as we were allowed to be an answer to hers.
Her need to get to her father’s home, to her family. Our prayer to Hear His Voice and Obey.
I thanked God for our new friend and for the wonderful welcome into the country of Botswana. I was excited for more opportunities to “Hear the Voice of God and Obey”. I made the comment in the car about that we were thankful to God for giving us Grace. Teammates chuckled, but we all knew it was true. Thankful for His love, mercy, blessings, and grace, and today July 8th, 2009 for the presence of His beautiful daughter Grace.
Thank You God You are so GOOD!
