Location: Mendoza Airport, Argentina. Destination: Lima, Peru.
6 days. 5000Kms. GO!
With another night on a airport floor under our belts colour teams were given the above instructions, and with that we embraces the words, “this is NOT a race”, “have fun” and “go see the nations”... how exciting! Backpacking through South America, this is what dreams are made of! We head to a hostel in central Mendoza to begin our journey preparation. Reality strikes... we now have 5 ½ days to travel form Argentina to Peru via either Chile, Brazil, Bolivia or Paraguay with a very limited budget and everything we own on our backs! WOW!
Now I could go into much detail about how the Blue team struggled those 5 days... you see 'struggle' is a rather foreign concept within Blue and thus not in our vocab as, until now, we have been abundantly blessed!... if we only knew...!
We travelled in the back of a delivery van (14hrs – 900kms), the back of a bakkie (several in fact), inside a truck (180km/hr – we nearly died...twice!), many many kms by foot and eventually by bus. We ate took much break and hotdogs were a highlight. Riaan even blessed us with pancakes and coffee! We slept on side walks, in parks (got cashed away), a bus station (sewerage overflowed on us), coffee shops (sickening smoke and bad TV) and my ultimate favourite, along the highway (donned in plastic coverings and all!)... one night we pushed through 28hours no sleep!
Above: Chile
We did get some quality bible study in and one in parable in particular I'd like to mention. In the book of Matthew Jesus we hear of a cripple man being brought to Jesus for healing. Jesus forgive his sins first. When challenged, Jesus replies, “Which is easier to say? 'Your sins are forgiven or get up and walk?'” Only then did Jesus heal his legs... We're reminded of the verse. “how much more does your heavenly Father know you need”. And what did we need? Character above comfort! God knew our hearts needed to develop beyond our need to be comfortable and so we were stretched!
Above: Peru (Chiclayo and the Andes)
Above all this we trusted God for a few things: experiencing Argentina, Gods beauty, to get there safely and to only spend half our budget. What more did our heavenly Father provide? : A full blown Fifa street festival in Arg, cultural day in one town, amazing sunsets, the Andes mountain range (in THREE countries), miles of coastline and captivating deserts! We did spend more than half our budget but God provided finances in NZ without us realising! (Yes MATT – that's all you buddy!!!!) We trysted God for unity in the team – we got family!
We arrived in Lima, Peru 10 hrs after scheduled meeting time after 40hrs on a bus and across 3 border posts... but we were safe!!! GOD is FAITHFUL!
Ps – VIVA BAFANA BAFANA, VIVA!!!!