I think most people have heard of Murphy’s Law. That’s the “law” that says, if anything can go wrong ...IT WILL! The one thing I didn’t know was that Murphy’s entire name was Antonio Jose’ Gonzales Murphy and he got all his laws from living in Honduras!!! (I’m just kidding of course!) But it could have been true!!
I’m not sure if it’s true for missionaries living in other countries, but the key word for living in Honduras is “FLEXIBILITY”! You have to be flexible! I’m not talking about being physically flexible although, with the roads that we travel, that would not be a bad trait to have either! However, what I am talking about is expecting the unexpected in your simple, every day life. I’ll give you a few examples taken from just our first two weeks back in the country.
It all started when we arrived at the airport. Hotir, our neighbor and co-worker in the ministry, was to use our truck to make the 3 hour trip to San Pedro Sula and meet us at the airport. He has been our “airport transportation” for the last few years and is always right there waiting when we walk through the doors with our luggage.
Mike had talked to Hotir the eventing before we left the U.S. and made sure he had our flight number and arrival time. When our plane landed, we halfway expected delays and problems, either with the arrival of our luggage, hassles with customs, or both! Those things have happened with us on more than one occasion. However, other than the fact that, while going through customs, Mike discovered that, somehow, he had left his residency card in another bag back in the States, we were pleasantly surprised at how smoothly and quickly things went! We came through customs thanking the Lord for such an easy entry into the country, and happy that Hotir would not have to wait long for us.
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| The airport in San Pedro Sula |
As we walked through the glass doors from customs and into the airport lobby, we expected to see Hotir’s smiling face waiting for us there - but he was nowhere to be seen. “Oh well, he probably got hung up in traffic,” we surmised. So, with all our luggage stacked on a rolling cart, we waited at the door for his arrival. After an hour, we were beginning to get a bit concerned, and twenty minuted later, I was praying earnestly for his safety. Finally, about an hour and a half after our arrival, we saw Hotir, smiling and in one piece, walking across the parking lot towards the doors to the airport (the entire airport only has two sets of doors so it was not hard to spot one another!).
After greetings, handshakes, and hugs, Hotir went to get the the car - but the vehicle he pulled up in was not ours - it was his parents car. He explained to us that he had started from La Esperanza that morning driving Mike’s big “Ford-Tough” truck but, before he even got out of town, one of the tires blew out. He quickly got that fixed and started out again, but immediately noticed another problem ...the transmission was acting up and the truck would not shift into gear. Thank the Lord, all of this happened before leaving town and he was able to turn around, limp back to the house, and borrow his parents vehicle.
Happy that there had been no serious mishaps and thankful that his parents had been so generous as to allow him to use their car for such a long trip, we loaded our belongings, piled into the car with Hotir, and headed for home. About three hours later, we pulled into our driveway without incident.
The next day, we were busily unpacking and trying to get settled. After working diligently for a few hours, we were both a bit hot and sweaty and I went to fix us a glass of ice water. However, when I opened the freezer to get the ice trays, instead of finding ice in the trays, all I found was cool water! Our refrigerator, a gift from our church in Tacoma, Washington some 19 years earlier, was dying! Some things were still frozen or were at least icy, so we really hand’t lost any food yet. Fortunately, a couple of years back, we had bought another refrigerator from some missionaries that were leaving the country. We bought to use in the church kitchen when it is finished, but in the mean time, we had let the children’s home use it. They no longer needed it and it had been returned to us and it was sitting in the unfinished addition of our house. So, after a couple of hours of cleaning it up, we were able to plug it in and transfer everything into the working refrigerator. Our first thought was, “Wow! This is great! When we get the broken ‘fridge out of the kitchen, we’ve got a nice new one that we can just put in it’s place!” But, unfortunately, the “new” refrigerator was two inches wider than the space between the cabinets. The old one HAD to be fixed! There was no way that we could afford to buy a new refrigerator! If it could not be fixed, I would just have to live with going outside to the addition any time I needed anything from the refrigerator!
We put in a call to Luis, who works on appliances and makes “house calls”. Luis is a wonderful Christian young man whom we have known for many years. He immediately came out and made a diagnosis - he felt that the 15 years of electricity fluctuations had taken its toll and the refrigerator’s compressor was dead or dying. But, to know for sure, it had to be loaded up on our flatbed truck and taken to the refrigerator “hospital” to be checked out.
The next day, Luis called with the verdict. It was not the compressor! It was a damaged tube that was leaking freon! Our little fridge would live!! We just had to leave it for a few days with “Doctor” Luis so he could replace the tube and fill it with freon. I’m happy to say that, four days later, our refrigerator was back home with us, healthy and freezing water just as good as new!
One of the most pressing needs upon our return was that we were going to have to go to Tegucigalpa, the capital city, and renew our residency cards. Both of our cards had expired while we were in the States. Because all of our ministry vehicles, except two, have some major issues going on, we would be making the trip in the only logical vehicle that we were sure could make the journey - our small, yellow, reliable 21 passenger school bus. (The other running vehicle was a 40 passenger bus!)
We were packed and ready to go on Monday morning, less than a week after our arrival in Honduras. We loaded our stuff and Mike tried to start the little bus, but “old reliable’s” battery was dead. For several days, Mike and Hotir worked to get it up and running, and all the while, because we were thinking we would be leaving the following morning, we were lived out of our suitcases. Thursday morning, after finally installing a new battery on Wednesday, we loaded our bags for the third time and took off for the big city.
“Tegus” (as the country’s capital is “affectionately” called for short) is a dirty, crowded city where we try to get in, take care of our business, and get out as quickly as possible. However, we always have to stay the night when we go because it is a 3 hour drive one way. By the time you get where you are going and take care of your business, it is usually getting late, and we really don’t like to drive Honduran roads at night. (You just never know when you may run up on a cow, mule, horse or drunk in the middle of the road!) We usually stay at the cheapest place we know, but this time, to celebrate our 40th wedding anniversary, we decided to stay at the Hotel Maya.
After checking into the hotel, we left for the immigration office. As we pulled out of the hotel parking lot in our little yellow school bus, we began praying that they had not moved their office again. (It makes it really difficult and frustrating to show up at what was a government office only to find that they have moved it again without informing you. That means that you must then go looking for their new location. This is in a city where many of the streets don’t even have names!) But God was merciful, and the location had not been changed.
The first order of business was to pay the fines for allowing the cards to expire. Mike’s card had expired just a week earlier but, because I was in the States all of last year taking care of my parents, my card was more than a year over due! We thought this might cause a problem but, it seems that they are always more than happy to take money from Gringos, so, that problem was taken care of rather quickly. Nevertheless, the hitch came a few minutes later when they discovered that Mike had left his old card in the States.
Now, even though they have all the information in their computers and files and we had Xerox copies of his card with us, they said that he would first have to go to the Police Station on the other side of town and get a “denuncio” or paper of disclaimer. Next, we would have to go to the bank and get a “constancia” which is a paper saying that we have exchanged a certain amount of American dollars during the last year.
So, we crawl back into the hot, unairconditioned bus. Several hours later, after we ran all over Tegus fighting bumper to bumper traffic, locating parking spaces big enough for a small bus, waiting in lines and hassling with officials, we finally had all the papers required and were ready to take them back to Immigration. But inevitably, they had already closed! Oh, well. No problem. We would have a nice anniversary dinner, get a good night’s rest and be there first thing the the next morning!
The following morning, which was Friday, after checking out of the Maya, we headed straight to the Immigration office. After a short wait, we saw the same girl we had dealt with the day before. She was satisfied with the paperwork and proceeded to type all the necessary info for our new cards into her computer. Next, she snapped our ID pictures for the cards.
And then, she sweetly smiled and said, “I’m sorry, but you can’t get your cards today. You’ll have to come back on Monday. The girl who makes the cards did not come in today.”
And then, she sweetly smiled and said, “I’m sorry, but you can’t get your cards today. You’ll have to come back on Monday. The girl who makes the cards did not come in today.”
Well, it turns out that, in the entire country of Honduras, there is apparently only one person authorized to make the residency cards ...and she decided not to go to work last Friday!!
After a few stunned moments of disbelief, we told her that we needed to go home and would just have to try to come back sometime the following week. So, we boarded our little bus and headed home.
Well, today is Tuesday. So far, we have not been able to return to Tegus. We are just praying that they will hang onto our cards until we can make the trip again - hopefully next week. BUT ...we don’t expect anything - except the UNexpected!
The good thing in all of this is that, with God, nothing is unexpected or takes Him by surprise! He knows all about it, and He makes all things work together for good to them that love the God and are called, according to HIS purpose!
Just think about how about God was working during all our unexpected happenings in the last two weeks:
1. When Hotir was coming to get us, the truck had all it’s problems before he even left town rather than two hours down the highway!
2. The refrigerator waited until we came home before breaking down, we had an extra one that we could use, we didn’t lose any food during the problem, and our little refrigerator was fixable!
3. For our trip to Tegus, at least we had one working vehicle that was travel worthy (even if it was a bus), we had a nice anniversary celebration and, now, all the paper work is done and we just have to make the trip to pick up our new residency cards!
You know what? When you know that God is in control, you can just sit back and relax. You can just expect Him to take over and handle things when the unexpected happens!
Now, I wonder what Murphy would say to that!
P.S. Before I could post this, we had an ANOTHER UNEXPECTED event! Our internet, which had only been working for 2 days, QUIT working.
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