Watch Those Bumps in the Road!

I suppose people in general have the right to assume that "bumps" in the road of life are always an interference, a frustration, a temporary setback, or something to overcome.  Followers of Jesus don't have that luxury.  We have to stay open to the possibility that some "bumps" along life's highway indicate the activity of an involved God.

Eleven people from our church spent July 10-17 in the Dominican Republic, the nation that shares a Caribbean island with Haiti.  We worked in a community called Samangola, alongside people from churches in Bani and San Rafael.  Our task was to help in the completion of a simple church building in Samangola, the home of a new congregation there.  For four days we painted, shoveled base gravel, and mixed and loaded concrete.  The church seeks to evangelize among the poor of the Dominican, which includes both Dominican people and people of Haitian descent.  In particular, church leaders seek to reach children.

The bulk of the group planned to fly out of Miami to Santo Domingo on June 9.  (I would catch up with them on the 10th.)  However, the landed in Miami only to find that their flight had been cancelled.  The airline scrambled to reroute them, eventually putting them up in a hotel for the night.  The next day the airline sent them to Santa Domingo - by way of New York City!  (Airlines don't care about geography - just schedules!)  At the time the team thought it was a mild inconvenience at worst and a funny story to tell eventually at best. 

But God was up to something.  The group had several duffel bags of shoes and baseball equipment to distribute in the DR.  Shipping cost was sizable for these items, but our church had been generous in support of the entire project.  As a result of the flight inconvenience, an official of the airline decided to waive shipping costs on all the duffel!   As a result, this leveraged several hundred more dollars to be put into the new church's ministry in Samangola.  A "bump" in the road turned out to be something that furthered the cause of leading people in new life with Jesus.

Don't be too quick to assume that all the bumps in your life's road are bad.  Consider the possibility that God may be at work.  I'll see you around the next bend in the river.