It never ceases to amaze me how God is in control of every single aspect of our lives. We do not understand His ways, His motives, His thoughts, or His methods of getting things done. We always look at life from a selfish perspective. However, God is always looking from a heavenly perspective.
Here is our situation. Because these kind of things do not normally happen in this way I thought it would be interesting for many of you to read this and better understand our lives as missionaries.
Here is the situation with our move to Porto Velho…
1. About a week ago we purchased tickets for flying to Porto Velho tomorrow morning. We were not sure when our moving truck was going to show up and so we had to wait until then to purchase tickets. We were told that the truck would arrive on Wednesday. Having complete peace about the situation, we went ahead and purchased the tickets.
2. The truck we are getting is not a normal truck for a move. It is a meat truck. What does that mean? That means we decided to get an air conditioned truck for our move! The inside will probably be a little different than the regular truck you might expect. So we will be sending a different herd on this truck. We will be sending a herd of boxes and furniture on this ride! The reason we chose this ride is because it is nearly $5000.00 cheaper than any other moving truck we could find.
3. The truck was supposed to be here yesterday. It is already getting late in the day and we still have no word on the truck. It wouldn’t be a very bad situation if we were not leaving at 7:30am tomorrow. Other than the truck not being available yet, there are restrictions on trucks and when they can be on certain streets. Remember we are in Brazil. To get to the house we are loading from, the truck will probably need to wait until late in the evening. The roads that block the entrance cannot be accessed by trucks between 5am and 9pm.
4. We have not yet sold our car. We are planning to take it on the truck with us. The problem is that we are not sure that it will fit on the truck with all of our belongings. We have a 40′ truck coming. However, we have our move, the Kokenzies’ belongings and a few other things for another missionary up in the area. The other issue is, “How do you load a car into the back of a meat truck?” My first thought would be to back it up to a dock, right? Well, I have not to this moment been able to find a dock. So, my next thought was we get it onto a hydraulic lift at a mechanic shop or something like that. Being in São Paulo, there are not many truck stops around. The closest ones I can find are not anywhere within reasonable range. So we have finally found a solution that will work. I will call a tow truck to lift my car. Then I will drive the car off the back of the tow truck and onto the meat truck!!!
5. Because of our move we decided that we would go to church on Wednesday evening if the truck did not come. We usually go to church on Thursday evening. We decided to go to a church that we have been to several times before. The pastor is a friend of mine and when we prayed together during the service, he asked me to give a testimony about our move to Porto Velho. There were probably about 20 people there including my family and my parents. One of the 20 was a young man who was just visiting the church. He had been doing some business in the area and when church time came he decided to make a visit. After church, the young man came to me and explained that his father was a missionary in Porto Velho for 8-10 years. He explained how he had grown up in that town and remembered many things from his youth there. His father worked with the missionary who will be picking us up at the airport. What a blessing! Looking back, we can see how God orchestrated all of this.
With all of these things in play, what will be the result? Will our truck come today? Will we be forced to load the truck all night before leaving at 7:30 in the morning? Will the car fit on the truck? Will we need to leave anything behind? Will the Lord come back before morning?
With many questions on our mind, we are looking to the Lord and encouraged about all of it. We have placed our confidence in the promises of God and we KNOW that He is in control of all of it. I will post next week on the outcome of all of these things. Hopefully I will be able to get some pictures of this truck and move.
