Going into this 11 month journey I knew God had a lot in store for me. I knew he had a lot to show me and teach me about how to live each moment for His glory. I wasn’t however expecting it on day 1.
On July 3rd our squad loaded up and headed to the Atlanta airport. We arrived in El Alto, Bolivia 20 hours later. I had heard rumors ahead of time that my team (7 people) would be traveling 12 hours to Apolo, Bolivia with a few others in a landcruiser. Keep in mind each of us has a day bag and a large backpack with all our stuff for the year. At the time I didn’t stress about it because I knew immediately this was not even possible.
And that was my first mistake…
When I walked out of the airport I saw our wonderful ’94 landcruiser for the 11 of us. We piled all our bags on top, strapped them down, and piled inside. The front and the middle were bench seats and the back was two bench seats facing each other. I of course immediately reached for my seatbelt to find there were none. This alone made me quite uneasy. If only I had known what was to come.
After 4 hours we hit what I thought was the first large stretch of dirt road. I quickly came to find Bolivia is pretty much all dirt roads
. The nice dirt road turned into a one lane road that wound up and down and through the mountains. The view was absolutely incredible as we ascended (15,000 ft)and descended into different villages, but I hated every single minute of it. As many of you know I get motion sick from simply swinging on a swing so the current conditions were almost more than my body could physically handle. But it wasn’t the carsickness that was taking the biggest tole on me. As I looked straight down thousands of feet I feared for my life more than I ever have before. After about 8 hours I finally took my first breath. I knew it couldn’t possibly get any worse.
And that was my second mistake…
Right about the time it started to get dark it also began to full on down pour. For the sake of our dear parents I’m going to kindly leave out the rest of the details of the trip. I’m sure you can put the pieces together.
Here is the important stuff though. As I sat in the back of the landcruiser, terrified for my life and fervently praying, God spoke clearly to me. He told me:
“I have protected you every day of your life. Is it any harder for me to protect you today than it has been any other day? I created all of this. I created you. Is this too big for me?”
It seems so simple, but was yet so profound. God is my protector… regardless the circumstances. I know full well God doesn’t promise me protection, but He does hold my life in his hands. And his will for my life is far greater than my own.
Over the next few weeks we did a lot of traveling with similar conditions. I’m not going to say I didn’t have any fear, but I was able to take a few deep breaths and enjoy God’s glorious creation. God took on a new name this trip and he reminded me of it each time I had to hop in the back of a pick up or look over a cliff… PROTECTOR.
THANKS FOR READING. MORE BLOGS AND LOTS OF PICTURES TO COME SOON!
