Bigger Plans

When Kels, Lil, Robyn and I sat down to figure out where we were going on our mission trip, there were a couple of “nice to haves.”  My nice-to-have was an English speaking, McDonald’s eating country, but that wasn’t going to happen.  Peru seemed to be calling and it seemed to be calling in mid-July based on everyone’s schedules.

Kels and Lil are veterans to foreign missions and they are good at flying by the seat of their pants, but Robyn and I are the newbies who share a deep appreciation for organization, efficiency and planning.

We scrolled through hundreds of trips on the e3 website, but the one that caught our attention was out of Colorado.  We signed up assuming that we would meet the Colorado team at an airport in the states before flying to Peru.  God had bigger plans.

I’m pretty sure that as soon as you hit the “Apply” button on the e3 website alarms go off across the nation because within 24 hours we each had received phone calls and emails from various e3 associates.   It was amazing.

Through these phone calls, we found out that there were other people from Birmingham who had signed up for the same trip.  I thought the odds of this were unlikely and gave God props for throwing us a bone of encouragement.  But He had bigger plans.

Turns out that the “other people” from the ‘Ham were really more like an army of 30!  Not only that, but the majority of them go to a fairly large church in the area and have been on this same trip a half-dozen times!  Add to it that the team leader is a cardiologist at UAB who is uber-organized, efficient and is serious about some planning, and you have a BIG BLESSING from God!

I have sat back in amazement at God’s provision.

Dr. Bill has shared photographs of the ministry sites, hotels, Peruvian contacts, the airport, airplanes, restaurants, and even the internet resources we will have available to us.

He has even given us lists of vaccinations and items to pack – complete with a demonstration of the type of the converter/adapter we will need so our hairdryers and computers will work.

He has coordinated free ground transportation to and from the Atlanta airport and even had time to schedule a site seeing tour for those wanting to stay a few extra days.

This dude makes me want to hug Jesus!

Y’all, God’s plans are always bigger than what we can dream.  If you want to see just how big He is, take a step of faith.  He will bless you with abundantly more than you can ask or imagine.