I don't have to understand to follow...

Our last island in the Caribbean leg of our Distant Islands journey, Curacao, 7-15 May 2012.  That's what our itinerary said, but God had other plans...

We landed on schedule, excited about the uncertainty ahead of us and to hear Dutch spoken all around us.  We'll be able to talk to them in Afrikaans.  This is going to be a beautiful week!  And then we met the immigration officers...  Now, if I take you back to the miracles we experienced just in entering the Cayman Islands, I had no doubt that God would get us out of this as well (or at least into this country as well).  But, as I would say in Afrikaans:  "Toe nou nie."& nbsp; (Then now not...)  =o)

Having a Schengen visa isn't enough, as we though, according to the information we received from the embassy.  So here we are, stuck on the airport, not able to get into the country, but needing to stay for a week, until we're flying out to Germany.  They just want to send us back to Jamaica (but what then??).  AirBerlin only flies to Düsseldorf once a week.  So what do you do?  Well, if God doesn't tell me anything to do, I just wait on Him.

They tell us we're only allowed to stay 24 hours, tomorrow we have to fly to Germany (which is the start of a series of flights, taking us to our next country of ministry – Hong Kong).  So there we go, 19:00 we're trying to find a bus and a place to stay.  I'm still loving it!  Lord, how are you going to get us out of this one?  The busses don't take people with big bags, but luckily 4 of us were able to squeeze into one.

To make a long story short, after a lot of walking, God leads us to a lovely Spanish lady, who opens up her room to us for the night.  Tight fit, but it's a roof over our heads.  The girls all squeeze on a bed and the guys sleep in the living room.

The next day, using the 24 hours we're allowed to be in the country, we go out to see the beautiful city of Willemstad.  Beautiful!

Ready to go to the airport to fly out at 21:00, we get a phone call:  The flight is fully booked for tonight, over booked actually.  They're sending us back to Jamaica on Thursday.  What now Lord?  Gerrie and André go back to the airport to try and sort something out, while the rest of us look for bigger accommodation to stay at until Thursday.  17:00 we just started walking to the backpackers, when I get the message that there is space on the flight for tonight, we need to get to the airport NOW!  We made it in time and smoothly to Germany too.  One week longer than we should've been here, but God is in control and He knows better.  He already blessed us with amazing miracles and a beautiful apartment to stay for our whole time here. And even a man of peace to minister to!

So, even though we only had 24 hours in Curacao, we were still able to minister:  Kids ministry – with the little boy at the house where we stayed, prayed for healing and for our taxi driver and shared the gospel with a shop-keeper.

Our God is an awesome God.  Mysterious, but awesome!