Witnesses of these things

“We are witnesses of these things” Acts 5:32

It was Sunday morning.  The Eckstein’s, family of 12, were stationed down here in Mexico with us for a few weeks.  We had plans to travel to Porvenir de Jalpa, an ejido [small village] about an hour away from the mission house in General, for a communion service.  We told them we’d start in the chapel at 10:30am…the clock now read 10:45am, and we were still at home…an hour away!  The morning didn’t go as planned.  There was the breakfast that took forever for our child to eat, the packing of the bags, which time to complete this task is always underestimated, then remembering that we were going to bring a dispensa [bag of pantry basics] to one family and needed the holy water for another, the giveaway clothes for a few and of course the bilingual bible, waters & communion service book.  And halfway through the bag-packing-running-around, a knock was heard at our door.  A family from the community who comes often in need of food.

‘Oh well,’ I mumbled under my breath.  “I guess we’ll just be even more late.”  I’m not very good under stress or change of plans…God is strengthening that weakness in me in mission life.  There are many opportunities for me to BREATH, clam down and react differently…often times I shuffle my feet a little faster and act passive aggressive to my husband.  True story…ask him, he’ll tell you the truth!  So instead of basking in “Oh it’s God’s timing,” I grumbled a little, got the cereal, bowls and spoons, and tried, with probably limited success, to smile.  About halfway through breakfast, my fake smile became real.  “Praise you Jesus that we hadn’t left yet.  This poor family would not have gotten breakfast this morning.”

As the car doors closed and we were finally on the road, I joked with a few of the Eckstein children that were in the car with us.  “Now that I have two children I need to plan an extra 2 hours to prepare.”  It was well past 12:30pm.  Communion service, ejido, here we finally come! 

On the back roads to the highway, sat an old truck.  A man outside next to the driver’s side door.  Something inside of me moved my hand and I waved at him.  It must have been the Holy Spirit.  Immediately he moved around the back of the car, towards the street, and flagged us down. “Oh no.  There is no time to help anyone.  We’re already 2 hours late!”  Ben slowed the car down and hopped out leaving the car running.  He came back over two minutes later to turn the car off and grab the keys. 

“This man had locked his keys in the car.”  Sure enough, as Ben said it, I saw the key chain dangling from the ignition inside the locked car.  This man had great delusions that our car keys could help him unlock his truck.  As Ben took the keys to attempt the impossible, I asked the kids in our car to pray an Our Father with me begging God to unlock the car.

“Our Father…”

“Gloria a Dios!”  I hear Ben shout from the driver’s side of the truck!  Not two words into our prayer, God had already answered it.  The keys miraculously and effortlessly opened his truck door.  I was astounded.  The rest of the prayer was prayed in thanksgiving!  Again, “Praise you Jesus that we happen to be driving down this stretch of road at this time to help this man.  God you are in all the details!”

Making it to the ejido late didn’t seem to bother anyone.  We had our communion service and our convivio [a sharing of life and pot luck].  In fact, as we pulled up and began knocking on doors inviting people to the chapel, one woman was just finished up the pasta for the dish she was bringing.  All things work in God’s timing. 

Very little is a mistake, even running late, in the eyes of the Lord.  He’s working on a different time table, a different schedule, and sometimes a different plan altogether. 

Lord help us to be docile to your plans.  May we be ever joyful even in the midst of a different design.  Give us the grace to follow you with hearts full of love for you and your people.