Tough day...

Yesterday was one of those days...I left the house early to do the morning bible study with our team and then took them on to the work site. Joyce stayed behind to finish making the lunches and wait for the tutor to watch those children who would not be going to site this day. After getting everyone started working on the first day at the site I had just settled into a job of my own when our tutor called me and said, "Call Joyce; she's been in an accident." 


As it turns out she wasn't injured at all and neither was anyone in the other vehicle, thank the Lord! However, at the moment I wasn't sure of that. What I did know was that Joyce was alone in the city, at the sight of a traffic accident on the busiest road in the city, and that she spoke zero Spanish! So, I jumped into the van and started racing through morning traffic make my way to Joyce as quickly as I could. Praying all the way I was making pretty good progress, but it wasn't enough for Joyce who was trying to hold it together at the scene not being able to speak to anyone. When I was about 10 minutes away Joyce called me and said, "Where are you? The police are here and I think they're trying to stir up trouble!"

In a few minutes I arrived on the scene to find God had sent Joyce someone who was somewhat bi-lingual and who was helping her, and within minutes I was able to assure the police we didn't need their assistance...if they get involved they take her license and she has to spend an entire day in 'transito' to get it back, plus pay a fine. God allowed us to escape that! Within another half hour the insurance representative showed up insisting we call the police to get an official report. We didn't want that since Joyce had rear-ended the other vehicle and we knew she would be at fault. Again God blessed us with a nice guy in the other vehicle! He agreed to allow us to fix his car (he trusted us) without having the police involved. So, with the police and the insurance rep. dismissed I could now call our mechanic to tow our car to his shop. Again God blessed us: he was on a call and was only 5 blocks from our location on the incredibly busy road and would be there to help us in minutes.

With our car safely towed away we turned our attention to getting the other vehicle repaired. The gentleman had a mechanic/body man where he wanted to take his car, so I told him I'd follow him there...which we did. His man gave us an estimate that was extremely high (it seemed like a 'gringo' estimate). I was able to convince the gentleman to follow me across the city to our body man and allow him to give us an estimate. (God blessed us again!) 


Once there our man, a Christian, gave us an estimate that was less than half of the other guy's and told the gentleman he would start on his car that day. (God continues to bless!) And this may be the best part yet...while our body guy was doing the estimate I was able to share the story of Jesus with the guy whom Joyce hit and he lit up like a Christmas tree when I explained to him he didn't have to "get better" before he could accept Jesus! God gives us opportunities all around us, everyday, in every situation, if we have our eyes open and our hearts receptive!

So, although it didn't feel like it during the day when we look back upon it God was right there all the time!
Despite the unneeded stress and trauma we are able to look back on the incident and see "we were never alone, Joyce was never alone...God was always with us!"


Yes, we're short a vehicle and out of a lot money; but no one was hurt, we got to see God manipulate the events after the accident, and a new hope burns brightly in the heart of Alexi (the guy Joyce hit).! Thank you God for protecting us through everything that comes our way!!!