In His Hands

During my Colombia trip, there were a few instances that really showed me that we were in the palm of God's hands and He was looking after us.

The first occured on our first day. We flew out of Toronto and spent most of the day at the George Bush airport in Houston Texas. That was the quite the experience. Besides the 8 foot statue of George Bush...holy cow, there were many other interesting things to look at on our 7 hour layover. Such as the interesting Texans, the tourists of all colours, shapes and sizes, the cool atriums that would echo even whispers when we walked under them in the hallways, the fun shops, etc. Anyway, back to the original topic; the day we left for Colombia was the day before the American Thanksgiving. This is apparently the busiest travel day in all of the US. While we were sitting at the airport in Houston we were watching the news reports and seeing that there were storms all along the East and Western coasts of the United States that day that were causing flooding and cancelling flights and causing 2 hour delays at many of the countries largest airports. When we saw the map, it was clear that we were surrounded by these storms, but we were untouched by them. The weather in Houston was clear and sunny. We were very grateful!


The following morning after spending the night in Bogota we took a plane to Medellin. It was mostly sunny when we took off (as you can see below), and even when we landed it was nice and sunny.


So, after arriving in Medellin, we loaded all the hockey bags and suitcases full of totes onto the van we had rented and started our bouncy and twisty 45 minute drive the mountain to the seminary residence. I was pretty nervous on that drive, considering those bags were held on by merely one rope and we were driving pretty fast. Every time the driver would zip around a corner I'd check out the back window to see if we'd lost my suitcase (mine was the one at the very back on the bottom..black).

So anyway, it was a miracle all the bags made it Colombia in the first place, then we were able to get them all to Medellin and they survived the drive down the mountain too. Then, to top it off, it started to look like it was going to rain as we were getting close to the seminary. We were starting to hear some thunder and were picturing all of those bags getting soaked. We were praying the rain would hold off until we could get there especially considering the totes held paper etc. that would not hold up well in the rain. Anyway, literally as we pulled into the driveway at the seminary it started to downpour...HARD. I mean, we have no idea what hard rain is like here...at least I'd never seen anything like it. The women ran into the seminary and the guys managed to get the bags off the roof and into the building before they got very wet (I'm really not sure how). We were so thankful that we'd made it 'just in time'.

So the next day we were having a tour of the seminary, and I noticed a local paper and was shocked to read this article:
Apparently it was the worst storm Medellin had experienced in thirty years. This happended a mere 45 minutes or so after our flight landed. I can't imagine what would have happened if we'd been flying in with that storm (remember how terrified I am of flying?!). The article mentioned that the city was in a state of emergency and that one person had been killed and 2000 injured. It also said that the storm stopped public transit, and that in Cartagena which is on the coast, they had waves two meters high. "The city literally had a heart attack" the article described. I stood in awe of how God had protected us from that. I still believe we were right in the palm of His hands. So amazing.

Another thing that I was so amazed by during my trip (and I know Joel said the same) was how safe we felt when we were down there. We were always careful; we had been told not to wear jewellery, to not carry a purse but to keep our money and passports under our clothes etc, but I never felt unsafe in that country. I know that there were a lot of people praying for us, and for the team Joel went with, that we just felt His peace the whole time.

I'm sorry my trip is taking so long to 'unpack'. I'm not sure why that is, but I only seem to be able to describe it in bits and pieces. This coming Sunday we're sharing our experiences with the congragation. I'm not a big fan of public speaking but hopefully it will go well. My sweet hubby has been working hard to make a movie of the video clips and pictures from the trip. It'll be a wonderful way for the church to feel a part of it and it'll be an awesome keepsake for me.

Mel