Saturday 23 June 2012

Into Uruguay

When a Christian is Squeezed what comes out. Jesus? Or everything else? Leaving YMCA Bright and early to make our way to Uruguay! To be honest I was so excited to be leaving Argentina and was greatly anticipating Uruguay. It was about a 4 hour drive to the border with only 2 more hours to go we run into a police road block. We pull over and they ask us for our insurance. Well when we entered into Argentina they told us it was not required to have insurance so we never bought any. Apparently we were misinformed. The police men seemed a little irritated but not as much as we were. They told us that we had to pay the $600 dollar fine for not having insurance. This is money that we don't just have. We knew that if we had to pay the fine we would not be able to get very far in Uruguay because we would be using our gas money. With the team struggling financially really having to trust God Literally for every penny, this was very stretching for us! As we were praying about what we should do one of the girls said she had a word for one of the cops. So she began to prophecy over him and tell him things that only God would know. Shocked by this the police man asked “what about him” pointing to the police man writing up our ticket. She began to say things about his character that God sees and the first police man looks even more shocked and says “ yea you are right he is like that.” This lead to him allowing us to pray for him and with that he gave his life to Jesus and you could tell he was trying so hard to hold back his tears. He said he couldn't take away our ticket, but he wanted to help. He told us there was a gas station just down the road he said that if we went there we could tell the man there that he sent us and he would fill up all our vehicles for free! Now we didn't pray for this man to get something out of it! But because God loves and always has things to say about his children if we just get past our own self and our own problems God can use us to do amazing things. When we step out in faith and obey Him, He will always provide. Finally we arrive at the border. Everything seems to be going fine. Everyone gets there stamp and we are just waiting for the cars to be approved. After we have waited for a while they tell us we can't get the cars through without insurance. Well we have no way of getting insurance for the vehicles because there was no place there at the border to get it and we can't go back into Argentina because they have already stamped us with exit visas. We were stuck with only one glimmer of hope. They decided to pass one of our Vehicles through so we can illegally (without insurance) go into Uruguay to get insurance for the rest of the vehicles. So the people with their names on the titles of the vehicles leave. Leaving the rest of us freezing cold stranded at the border. Luckily, we all have been fasting on Mondays as a team, which is what this day happened to be, so we didn't have to worry about food. Finally, after what seemed to be an age New Wine, our camper van, returns with insurance and an amazing story: Only about eight kilometers down the road they found an insurance office where they were greeted and helped more than they expected. The process does take some time, but after only a few hours they have the insurance and can head back. Well as soon as they walked out of the door to leave a guy on our team begins to feel the pull to go back in and pray for everyone. So that is exactly what they do they march back inside. The office workers seemed confused. Then Liney one of our Colombians and native Spanish speakers begins to yell “We want to pray for you if you want prayer come over here.” So everyone, the office workers, people in line, the janitors, and even the people in the back office all race to the center of the lobby. They join hands and Liney begins to pray for them. The phones began to ring, but no one left the prayer. Some people were crying others seemed confused, but all were so hungry and blessed. As they left people were thanking them and hugging them. God can always change the dullest atmospheres into Kingdom bearing ones if we are just willing to obey. They get back to us and the insurance people had given them information for a cheap hotel that would have room for all of us. So we headed out for Fray Bentos, Uruguay! We find the hotel the insurance people had told us about we go in and the insurance people had called and told them that we might show up so they were ready for us. We stayed there one night then headed out for our next city on the way to the Capital Montevideo. To this point we still had no clue where we were going or what we were doing. So our first morning there, in Uruguay, we prayed together as a family before leaving. What we didn't know was that many of the things that God was telling us and speaking to us about was about to be fulfilled. In Colonial, Uruguay we found a place to stay, but it was a lot more expensive than any of us had so the majority of us slept outside in the cars parked on the street outside of the hostel. Colonial is a beautiful city that reflects a really old almost European city right on the coast. We spent one night there. Me and one other girl slept in the Suburban and it actually wasn't so bad other than it being extremely cold. Finally we were ready to head out again to make our way to Montevideo. We drive for about 2 or 3 hours then New Wine, our camper van, begins to rattle. The people riding in it feel they are to pull over right then and someone would get out and look under it. As soon as they pull over the entire front Axle collapses and breaks off. The timing of it was perfect. If they hadn't pulled over it could have been a really severe crash and if it hadn't fallen off right when they pulled over the person that was going to look under it would have been smashed like potatoes! God is so Good that just shows His timing is perfect. Thankfully we were not far from a gas station/mechanic! So our caravan headed to the gas station. We got out and made ourselves at home in this gas station. It was so Cold and it was a very cloudy day and we waited. We waited for a good 4 hours before we decided we would just leave New Wine with the mechanic and come back for it later. About 45 minutes down the road Our RV and Caravan leader, Open Heaven, Breaks down. Because of all the extra people and weight from taking everything out of New Wine. So now Council and Might, our Buick, and Over Flow, our Suburban, have to go out and find the first place we come to, to stay for the night. Well the first place we come to we knew would be cheap... Also known as a Sex Motel. They are always on the outskirts of town and you pay a small amount by the hour, apposed to by the night. This was not our first motel like this we have stayed in and they usually are the most convenient at the time. So we book 6 rooms giving us 4 girls with a one double bed per room all the guys in one room and Jesse, Tanya, and Zoe (our leaders family) there own room. We work out a deal giving us a much cheaper night. We unload everything and begin to make trips back and forth to get the rest of the people and there stuff. We find out we are only about 30 minutes away from the airport. Which is going to come in handy since 3 of our guys and one of our girls were leaving that next day to go home and visit there families for a few weeks. Making us 3 men to 15 woman. Missionary Ratios. The next day many people leave early to head to the airport. The rest of us discover we are about a 5 min walk away from a gas station with a cafe and wifi. So we ask if we can extend our stay a few more hours until we hear something about our vehicles and can find somewhere else to go. We had planned to stay until 3pm. In the mean time one of our girls had been diligently sitting at the gas station searching for some form of a contact we could work with and maybe have a place for us to stay. The first guy she comes across (randomly online) tells us he knows of someone, but was very much stuck on the fact that they wouldn't help us so we shouldn't try. However, for some reason he emailed this ministry anyway. And just like that we had a contact that was willing to receive us. So we fit as many people as possible with all our stuff in our two working vehicle to go meet this guy that has contacted us. We arrive at the house of Andreas, the man that wanted to help us without even knowing us, and he had coffee and tea for us then his wife arrives home with ingredients for sandwiches. We talk with him for a while and another man arrives, David, who is going to show us to the house they have set up for us. So we say our thank you's and goodbyes and load up once again. About 20 minutes down the road Council and Might, the Buick, begins to over heat. So we pull over causing us to loose Over Flow, the suburban, who we were following to our next location. So we let the car sit then head back to Andrea's house. Andrea's is able to call David who was riding with the people in Over Flow to get them there. They have successfully arrived at the cabin and are heading back to pick us up. Well on there way back they call us to meet them at the airport because they have gotten pulled over for there break lights not working. By the grace of God the cop doesn’t do much just warns them not to drive anymore then leaves. So we meet them at the airport (a central place) and follow close behind so they won't get pulled over again. Finally arriving at this beautiful house it is now after dark and with our vehicles we don't think it wise to go back out to try and pick up the others we have left behind at the sex motel. We get a hold of them over facebook. They were not so excited to stay another night there, but they understood. Only down fall being was we had a lot of there stuff and they had a lot of ours. And that was just our first week in Uruguay. We knew God would have a lot in store if all this would happen just in the first few days in this country commonly know as “the missionaries cemetery.” Many Many Blessings and much love! Please keep me updated on your lives as well I love hearing from you all. Rachael Michelle.

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