God drives the car
A sister of one of my neighbors had come to the Guatemalan capital to have new pictures taken for her identification card. She had left her family at home in Asuncion Mita, about an hour and a half or two hours from the capital. She had come by bus, and now the day was gone and it had taken much longer than she had expected. All the buses were packed, so she was having a difficult time trying to get back home.
After contemplating her problem for a while, and doing some quick consultation I decided that if she was to get back to her family that night it would take a change of plans. I decided to take her to her home and her sister would go with me to accompany me on the return trip in the morning. We would spend the night in her home on the Guatemalan, Honduran border.
We hurried home to pack a few things and make sure that my housekeeper would take care of both our daughters until my son returned from work. We then picked up a couple of the older boys from our young peoples prayer group, who with their parents permission would join us in the trip, since it isn't safe for two women to travel to the interior of the country alone, especially at night.
Fortunately once we left the capital the traffic was very light. When we would hit stretches of good road I would get up to about 75 miles per hour. I have always enjoyed driving and have traveled the roads between the United States and Guatemala on numerous occasions. I have always felt very competent when so doing.
The country is full of Volcanoes and jungles. The edge of the road is often bordered by deep ravines or mountainous slopes. The mountains usually have a rugged uneven appearance, because it is grown over an ancient civilization,and the archeologist are constantly digging up ancient ruins of old temples and such from the days of the Mayan reign.
On this particular evening as I drove through the little towns and villages along the way there was no sign of life, as most were already in their homes, preparing the evening meal. I continued along in a carefree manor, it was nice to take out on the spur of the moment like this and I was enjoying it. It had been a long time since I had traveled to this part of the country and the late Guatemalan evening was beautiful just before sunset.
I was moving along at this fast pace as I started up a slight incline. A bus coming towards me in the left hand lane, stopped to let off some passengers, and just before I came even with him, a cow suddenly loped up the slope on the right hand side, right into my lane of traffic, and it stopped.
I had no where to go, the cow was in front of me, the bus full of passengers was to my left and a steep slope plunged off to my right.
I felt like I was frozen in time, I heard everyone in the back scream. I turned my car towards the steep embankment, closed my eyes and yelled to everyone in the car,"here we go, Oh Lord help us!" In a flash I saw in my mind, the car rolling over and over until it reached the ravine below. I didn't want to open my eyes because I didn't want to actually see it happening.
I sat with my eyes closed, expecting the plunge to begin. It seemed like forever. Nothing happened. Why?
Slowly I opened my eyes. I was driving straight down the road. Behind me in my rearview mirror, I could see the people still getting off the bus. Everything was completely calm. Nothing had happened.
"What happened?" I exclaimed. "How did we get here? I turned the car to go down the embankment. Did anyone see how we got here?"
One by one they each confessed that they had no idea what happened because they had all closed their eyes when they saw me start toward the embankment, so no one saw anything.
As if with one voice we all began a shout of praise to God who guided that car for us.
I began to drive at a slower, safer speed. We were all safe and had almost arrived at our destiny. Fifteen minutes later we were telling my friends family of what God had done for us.
"If the Lord had not been on our side, let Israel ( also us) say...the flood would have engulfed us, the torrent would have swept us away. Praise be to the Lord...we have escaped like a bird out of the fowler's snare. The snare has been broken and we have escaped. Our help is in the name of the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth." Psalms 124:1, & 4-8.
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