Witness Wednesday #199 Catherine D.

Today I would like to share with you a witness about how God came through at the last minute.  He does this sometimes.  Sometimes it can feel like He is not there, like He didn’t hear your prayers, and then just when you think all is lost, He comes through.  Last September, I went to Ecuador for my niece’s baptism.  This was a really big deal for me, as my niece was born at 27 weeks and almost didn’t survive.  That is a witness for another time.  She was in the hospital for 4 months, and just as she got to leave the hospital and go home, COVID happened.  She had to stay in her house for over a year.  Her grandparents, my brother-in-law’s parents, couldn’t come here from Ecuador to meet her, and they couldn’t travel there due to the pandemic.  So, this past September, right before my niece turned 2, they decided to have her baptized in Ecuador.  They had asked me to be the Godmother, and I was honored to make the trip to celebrate this amazing occasion.  She is a miracle baby for so many reasons, and I was looking forward to being a part of bringing this beautiful girl into the church.  My mom and dad traveled down a week early with my sister, brother-in-law, and my niece.  Then I was traveling with my mother-in-law, Joanie, as she also loves to travel.  

The beginning of our trip shows how God shows up in all the details.  We had a really early morning flight, and then we had a long layover in Florida.  When I say long, I mean we had a 12-hour layover in FL.  We were both wondering what we would do to pass the time.  We thought about leaving the airport and looking around the city, but we had our luggage, and we didn’t really want to walk around town carrying our luggage.  I was praying about this on our flight to FL, and the thought came to me that we could rent a car.  This way we could keep our luggage in the trunk and drive around the town.  Once we landed and got to the car rental place, it turned out it was very inexpensive to rent the car for the day.  We were all set and on our way.  We drove to the beach, we walked along the boardwalk, we got ice cream, we drove through a beautiful scenic park, and we even got out and went for a nice walk through the park.  We had a fantastic day and made it back to the airport in plenty of time to make our next flight.  God was in all the details of that day, and He worked things out perfectly for us.  

This next part of our journey is where things got a little bumpy.  We had been traveling since about 4 am.  We arrived in Ecuador at about 11 pm.  We were tired and ready to get to the hotel and get some sleep.  My brother-in-law had our flight info, but we had no way to reach him as our phones did not have international service.  This wasn’t really a problem as our flight was not delayed, and he could always check with the airport if it had been.  Joanie and I wait in the line to go through passport control.  We finally get up to passport control, and we can see the door to go out to meet all those waiting to pick you up.  We hand over our passports, and the man looks at them, then he looks at us.  Then he calls over someone else, and he looks at them, they talk in Spanish, which I don’t speak, and I can see the one he called over shaking his head.  I start to get nervous.  I ask if there is a problem.  He said, yes, I am sorry, ma’am, but your passport expires in less than 6 months.  No, it does not expire until March of 2022 and we are in September of 2021.  He explained that in order for me to enter the country, I have to be at least 6 months away from my expiration date.  We looked at my passport, which expired on March 6th, and I landed on March 16th.  He said they will only give a 10-day grace period, and I was already at my 10 days.  Are you getting this?  If I had traveled one week earlier, I would have been fine, but since my passport was going to expire in less than 6 months, 6 months, I couldn’t stay.  I had this sinking feeling in my stomach, and I asked what that meant.  He said he was going to ask his supervisor, and he was going to try to see what he could do, but it probably meant that I would have to get back on a plane that night and go back to America.  Joanie and I were so confused.  We didn’t know what to do.  They asked if she wanted to stay, but she said she was with me; if I had to go, she was going home too.  The man left us standing there for what felt like a really long time and went to talk to his supervisor.  I told Joanie we needed to pray, and we both started to pray.  We prayed that God would work some miracle.  We prayed that we would get to go to the baptism.  I pleaded with God, I begged Him to work his magic and not let them send me home.  I praised God and thanked Him, I did and said everything I could think of in that moment, and you know what?  It didn’t work.  The man came back and said he was really sorry, there was nothing he could do, we had to wait for someone from the airlines to come and escort us back to the other part of the airport so we could get on a plane and go back home.  Go home without seeing my family, without a way of telling them what is going on, without seeing my niece being baptized.  I was heartbroken, and so was Joanie.  

Even though we were heartbroken, do you know what I told Joanie?  It’s not too late.  We are not back in America yet.  We don’t have a new ticket yet.  We can’t give up.  Yes, we had done all we could humanly do to help ourselves, but God is the God of the impossible, and He is a way maker.  He makes a way where there is no way.  I had a chat with God.  I told Him that I appreciated all He had done for us that day.  I told him how extremely grateful I was that He saved Charlize and that I got to be her Godmother.  I let Him know that if he wanted us to get on a plane and go back to America, then we would obey.  I also told Him that I knew it wasn’t too late for Him to fix this.  I told Him I wasn’t giving up on the idea that we would make it to the baptism.  I told Him that I loved Him, that He is amazing, and that whatever He wanted in that moment was what we wanted.  I said, Lord, we believe, help our unbelief.  Then I prayed in the Spirit because, honestly, I had no idea what to pray for or what to say.  I had no idea how the situation could be fixed, but I knew the Holy Spirit could convey the messages in my heart much better than I could.  We sat there for about 20 minutes just waiting for someone from the airlines to come and get us so we could go back home.  Then, all of a sudden, the man from passport control walked over, and he said they worked it out and they were going to let us go into the country.  He said we were very lucky as they never do this, but they will make this one exception.  He was surprised.  I told him it wasn’t luck, it was the power of prayer.  I tell you, I have never been so excited to see my brother-in-law as I was that day walking through those passport control doors.  

God is so good!  He really is.  If you are listening to this podcast, then I know you already know this, but we should say it again and again.  We should say it often because He really is that good.  We don’t just say He is the WayMaker, or the God of the Impossible, because it sounds good or because they are cool names.  We say it because it is who God is.  He really does make the impossible possible.  He makes a way where there isn’t one.  There was no logical reason why they let me through that night.  We should have been put on a plane and sent back to America, and yet that was not what God wanted, so He made a way for us to stay.  I know you have seen similar things like this in your life.  If you haven’t, I don’t think it’s because they aren’t happening; I think it’s because you aren’t looking for them.  God is working in every detail of our lives.  If we want to see Him working in our lives more, all we need to do is open our eyes more and look for Him.  

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