The 6 days between Costa Rica and Guatamala that forever changed my life
The hike started off with so much blessing from God. In total we hike 1300km, that is the same distance as Pretoria to Cape Town… if you ignore the giant mountains of Central America. I would like to tell you about the entire hike, but apparently the newsletter shouldn’t 100 pages long, so I’ll just stick to the story that changed my life. So we were on the border of Nicaragua and Honduras, where we slept on the street at the borderpost, and we were planning to catch a big truck. And there it was, a big maroon truck heading to Guatamala. We were jumping for joy untill they told us they are not allowed to pick up passengers. So into Honduras we went with our big and heavy bags.
We walked for 5mins and then the big maroon truck picked us up after all. They were completely Spanish, so the conversation didn’t last long. They helped us through all the border posts into El Salvador, so we weren’t treated like ‘gringos’ – the word South Americans use for rich white people. But when we were only 4hours away from Guatamala, the truck broke down – on the highway, in the middle of nowhere in El Salvador. The battery of the truck was dead. So we had nowhere to go and it was already dark. The truck drivers told us that we could sleep inside the truck, and we fitted onto the bed like sardines. We had such a great time with the truck drivers, laughing so much because of our language barrier.
The next morning, like any other morning, we woke up, brushed our teath and did our usual morning toilet in the bush… untill we heard the words ‘no camera, no camera’. From the bush where we were standing, it all played out like a movie, 3 guys with machetes, knives and a homemade gun was attacking the truck drivers. We did the only thing we could… pray. They only took our electronics… I think our big bags were just to heavy, but we were safe. After the attack, out truck drivers told us that we need to go, because their boss was coming from Guatamala to fix the truck, and we weren’t actually allowed to be with them but they promised to pick us up later. The police gave us a lift to the police station and we spent the afternoon there, waiting for our truck and explaing John 10:10 to the police. But after a few hours we knew it was time to hike again, for it was getting dark, and our truck wasn’t coming. So the police helped us – they stopped every car and asked them where they were going.
The next moment, another one of our teams stopped and picked us up, they were riding on a small truck. I was almost in tears as we told them what happened. We travelled for 10 more minutes and then we were left next to the road… at the worst possible place, on a turn next to a steap highway. No truck would ever want to stop there. But we had faith and knew God wouldn’t let us down. The next moment, we saw our maroon truck. We jumped for joy as we ran to get our bags, and as the truck slowed down, we saw the truck drivers faces… something was wrong. They pointed behind them, and like in a bad movie, the boss was driving behind them.
At that moment, I lost all hope, I couldn’t even stand anymore. I begged God to show us His glory, for there was no other way we could make it through. And once again God acted at the precise right time. The next moment, a silver car stopped next to us… it was the boss. He told us that he saw us hiking, called the truck and stopped it, and he was taking us back to his truck. Only God can change hearts like this! So we were taken back to our truck, and they were so happy to see us – the bond of losing electronics was strong enough to overcome language barriers and finally we had such a great opportunity to spread God’s word to the truck drivers, and the boss helped with the translation. They took us safely to Guatamala where God provided food and shelter, for we had nothing left. Sometimes God is not just all we need… He’s all we have. John 10:10 became so real to me… the devil is a thief, and he can try to steal your joy… but if your joy is found in heavenly things and not earthly things… then there is no hope for him.
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