March 8th 2013 at the Peruvian and Bolivian border; it’s time to go through customs. As I search through my bag for my passport I slowly realize, “Oh it might have been in the bag of snack wrappers you through away last night at the bus stop!” Way to go big guy. Little did I know that this act of carelessness on my behalf had God written all over it. God was telling me I had to sit down and listen to what he had to say, and there was nothing I could do about it. This way I would have plenty of bus hours to think and ponder on what I had neglected my very first debrief. This is the story of how God taught me how to sit, stay, reflect, and learn from Him, and how he took a Giant Louisville Slugger that said, “Brokenness,” on it, and swung it right across my heart.
The Majority of this journey was about learning how to let go of control; which is funny because that was the one thing I didn’t want to surrender all debrief. I had this fear the previous week of being switched to another team. I told my self I would be pissed because that’s usually my first reaction to something like that. I didn’t want to go out of a comfort zone that I didn’t know was my comfort zone… My Team. The funny thing is that’s exactly one of the reasons I applied for the race. I just never expected the whole, “Leaving my comfort zone,” thing to look like that. I thought it was going to look more like something out in the woods or something, but of course God being God knew that would be too easy lol.
So, when I lost my passport, obviously all control was gone. God took my car keys. I only had one option. Sit and learn what it’s like to have a total lack of control over a situation by means of countless ours of Peruvian bus rides. By the way my German companion, Jan, was loving every minute of the bus rides. “This is the real Peruvian experience!” Some how the excitement passed over me. My heart was totally in the wrong place. At the time I didn’t even think about the fact that this was God working in me. All I could think was how big of a waste of time this was. When, in reality, it was me who had wasted all of His time, last week at debrief. Not only did I have to go all the way back to Lima, Peru (about a 2 day bus ride) but I had to rely on Jan for all communication. So not only was I being taught how to let go of control, but I got a bonus of patience and communication as well. Lol.
As Friday came a long we found ourselves waiting 9 hours to cross a river that had flooded. It was about 6 hours of Peruvian dessert heat and 3 hours of dehydrated bumper to bumper inch by inch traffic. These 9 hours is when the first round of brokenness started to sink in. The bus was stuck, the river was flooded, and all I could do was be. I wanted so bad to just keep things moving; to keep progressing. I was only happy when there was progression, when things were going my way. Eventually I became restless. I tried to sit and play cards with Jan and some other folks we met on the road of parked buses, but I couldn’t sit still. I need some kind of thing that told me were getting closer to our goal, but alas, nothing. I start asking Jan to ask folks over and over if they had herd when the water was going down, but it was just the same answer over and over. 2 hours, but in Peru that could mean 3,4, or even 5 hours. I even found a place to get down on my knees and pray to God, but I had to stay here. I had to let go of control. It finally took me to exhaustion and near dehydration to just pass out and give up. Jan had helped get me some food and water once we finally got over the water around 9:00 p.m. When we finally got to Lima the next day I was able to talk to my squad leaders and just talk about what God was showing me through this whole thing. Tiffany Handley was gracious enough to lend me her message bible. It was exactly what I needed at the time I had never read one before except for looking up a few versus. Thanks Tiff! I came across a passage that talked about not fighting God’s way because it’s going to happen one way or another. As I read it I laughed and said something along the lines of, “Okay I get it!” But I still didn’t lol. There was way more to come!
To Be Continued!
Steven Buffington
