My wallet got stolen.
Not only my wallet, but my wallet containing my passport.
So grab some popcorn, because your in for a good story.
It started off as normal day.
– Wake up at 6:30
– Spend time with the Lord
– Workout at 7:30 with my personal trainer, Joey
– Shower at 8:30
– Breakfast at 9
While I was sitting at breakfast talking to some of my squad mates, Soloman (one of my squad leaders and friend) looked at me and asked “do you have your key chain with you?” Then he handed me a key that said “deep faith” (the second key I have received in the past week, apparently the Lord wants me to be working on a lot)
For those of you that do not know, my entire squad received giving keys at launch. Austin, who works at adventures in missions actually prays into a “word” that we will receive on our keys. After you receive your key, you ask the Lord to reveal the meaning behind the word. Sometimes it is just understanding the meaning, but other times the Lord calls you to action. After you are able to do either of these things or both, the Lord will typically highlight someone for you to give your key to. So the whole goal is to give away your key.
ANYWAYS… back to the story.
It was our Sabbath day, so some of the girls on my squad wanted to go to the beach. (to which I was like heck to the yes). On the way there we were going to stop at an ATM so a couple of us could pull out some personal cash. We took a tuk tuk into town (small vehicle, hard to explain, so I will post a picture below). We stopped at an ATM, but it wasn’t working. SO our tuk tuk driver took us to another. I pulled out my bag, and I couldn’t find my wallet. After I realized it was not in my bag, I quickly started searching in the tuk tuk. When it wasn’t there, I had a weird gut feeling it had been stolen. I asked our driver, Paul (best tuk tuk driver ever) to quickly drive us back to the first ATM on the slight possibility it has fallen out. (Also just a S/O to Paul, he was so concerned about finding my passport and seriously did so much for me!) We drove there and started looking around. It wasn’t there. I was starting to get nauseous. BUT I thought it could be at the hostel. Maybe I had just forgotten to put it in my bag that day. As soon as I arrived, I ran into my room and started throwing clothes, frantically searching for my lost wallet. I could feel the hot tears coming. I couldn’t find it anywhere. I had about a billion thoughts running through my mind. I am going to have to get a new passport. How do you even get a new passport? I am going to have to cancel my debit card. How am I going to pay for things? I am going to disappoint so many people. I went outside thinking it might have fallen out of my bag, but absolutely no luck. At this point, my team leader prayed for me. I started to feel a little more peace. We decided to drive back into town to walk up and down road to see if someone had dumped it. In that moment, I had finally accepted that it was stolen. Yet, I was still hoping some kind soul would be considerate enough to dump the passport and the cards. We probably searched for an hour with no luck. The girls convinced me to sit down and try to relax for a while. They prayed for me once again, and really spoke peace into my heart.
Sitting there I had two options…
I could either go back to the hostel, mope, be upset and mad
OR
I could choose joy, know that the Lord had a plan, and enjoy the rest of my day.
So I chose the second option and decided to still go to the beach. I spent some time with Poppa, talking to Him about the situation. We ran into some of the guys on my squad who once again prayed over the situation. After some time at the beach we went to go get gelato (at the best gelato place I have ever been to in my life). (also ice cream fixes every problem, amirite?) While we were leaving the beach, I remembered the key I had received earlier that morning. I began sharing maybe this was something God wanted me to have deep faith about. When we got to the gelato place we ran into some other people from our squad. Once again, I had another person pray over me (Vielka). Seconds after she did that, Anna ran inside and told me someone had sent a text to our group chat that someone had found my passport. I started crying because man how good is God?? I was just amazed at how quickly He had answered prayers. Ecstatic, I began to walk back to the hostel. I passed by a restaurant that I have been to every day since I have been in Unawatuna. (I had really been developing a friendship with the owner, Lana.) While I was walking, Lana starts screaming my name. She runs outside and starts asking about my passport and wallet.
It turns out that somebody that works at the post office found my wallet and started looking for ways to contact the owner. They looked through my wallet and found a receipt from the Happy Coconut (the place I had been going). The ended up calling Lana down to the post office and she was able to identify who I was. She remembered that I was going to be leaving in the next couple of days, so she quickly got in a tuk tuk and went up to the Jungle Beach hostel trying to find me. but I wasn’t there so she ended up leaving the number and name of the post office with Lennie. (who sent the message in the group chat). She said that all the money was gone but the cards and the passport was there. And how crazy is that??? No other store owner would have been able to identify who I was or might have just taken the passport for themselves. But INSTEAD the Lord chose the one store owner I had developed a friendship with.
The next day I was able to run down to the post office to get my wallet. The wallet held all all my cards, my passport. ( hey the thief even spared me 700 rupees.) So yeah this could have happened to anybody, but I truly believe it was the Lord deepening my faith.
