When my middle son was in high school, I was one of three leader
chaperones on a church youth mission trip to Quito, Ecuador. We were helping the locals mix mortar and
stack bricks to put up walls of a church, just outside the city. The story God brought to my mind this morning,
however, took place on our day off. The
mission organization had arranged for a bus and driver to take us, and a partner
group from Michigan, to the large, South American market in the
village of Otavalo.
We parked
on a side street and had a delightful couple of hours shopping in a place overflowing
with beautiful sweaters, jewelry, pottery, and with people visiting from all
over the world. Our instructions were to
return to the bus at a certain time for departure. I noted the time, noted the place we were
parked, and set off – alone – on my shopping adventure.
As I walked up and down the streets of the village lined with
tables of beautiful wares, I kept track of where I was in relation to our
bus. As the final thirty minutes prior
to departure approached, I ran into a couple from the Michigan group who asked my
advice for getting back to the bus. I correctly directed them, saying I
was almost ready to head back myself.
And then I turned down one final street to visit one final table of
sweaters…
On my journey back to the bus, I had been deliberately going down side streets only to the right, and this time, I selected a side street
to the left. So what I know now is: when I got back to the
main street after this final excursion, and granted, now in a bit of a hurry, I headed in
the opposite – wrong – direction from the bus, yet completely sure I was still
on track.
Looking down every side street in the approximate area I knew the
bus to be, from having counted the number of blocks I traveled down the main avenue,
I saw a bus down every street…but not my bus.
It wasn’t long before all the streets, buses and people looked exactly alike. I began to get nervous, but maintained an
external calm. We had no cell phones
with us, so there was no one I could call.
Our bus had no name, nor did the street, so there were no facts to
direct... And almost everyone spoke only
Spanish, so even if I could accurately describe my predicament, who would understand
my English?
Time
rolled on as I nervously paced up and down streets looking for my bus… I became more frantic as I realized one hour
had gone by, and I kept telling myself, “They won’t leave Otavalo without me.” I had been praying for God’s help, and yet I
continued to be lost. The tears were being
held back by less and less resolve, and a few started to well up as I
approached despair. Then I heard a
little voice in my head say: Go to the
middle of the street and just stand still.
They will find you.
I
recognized this was a voice of wisdom, likely from God, so I followed it. Surely by now they were looking for me; maybe
this will help. I stood in the middle of
the street (full of pedestrians and only a very seldom vehicle) for about five
seconds. It seemed like five hours. And then I instinctively began to walk... But something inside me commanded me to go
back – to just stand still. Every bit of
strength left in me was needed as I literally forced myself to stand in the
middle of that foreign street.
Have you ever tried to stand in one place when you’re lost? If panic is settling in, I will tell you it
can take an act of God to do this. Every
cell in your being wants to move. You
desperately want to squirm out of your circumstance, determined to find your
answer…your hope. Standing still feels
wrong. It feels scary and vulnerable. It feels defeating.
But it
worked! After no more than three minutes
of standing still, I heard a voice from heaven, I mean from another mission
trip leader (at that point, one and the same), yelling, “Ann!” He was running down the middle of the
street toward me. I was never so happy to
see anyone in my life.
When I asked him how he found me, he said, “I figured out you must
have gotten turned around." (A super kind understatement...) "I decided you were probably wandering the
streets exactly diagonal from where we were.” He was right: I was on the opposite side of
the main street, on the opposite end of town.
And when I finally stood still, I was no longer a moving “target.” I could be found.
So what is
it that God is saying to me today?
I believe He’s saying, “Stand still, dear Annie. Wait. Your destiny will find you.”
Standing still is one of the most difficult things to do...
