What happened was nothing less than a miracle. Let me explain and let you be the judge. Over the years of ministry I’ve heard the Lord speak clearly at different times. He has this tendency to overcome confusion and doubt to make His will super clear.
In 1995 we were sent by our church to Mexico to assist a church/mission station. We would be their first missionaries in Baja California. We knew we were called, and we also understood that it would definitely be challenging (and it was). We made a three year commitment.
We took Spanish at King’s Way Missionary Institute in McAllen, Texas. It was there we met another couple who would be working 40 miles south of where we were going. We agreed that once school was done we would travel together.
Now this is where it gets interesting.
We left south Texas and convoyed to San Diego. When we hit New Mexico the heat got terrible and my car didn’t have AC. The couple we were travelling with was pulling a trailer and couldn’t travel over 45 mph. It was over 100 F., I remember looking at our kids in the backseat and they were sprawled out, they were on the verge of heat stroke.
Now please bear with me.
Then something quite amazing happened!
There are several lanes available at the border crossing–they’re always backed up with 20 cars in each lane. So I pulled into one waiting for my turn to be inspected. Suddenly I heard honking behind me. I looked in my rear view to see what the deal was. It was our friends we had left back in New Mexico. They were in the car directly behind me!
My brain immediately started to calculate the odds.
It was then I heard Him speak to me.
Our three years were very difficult. We lived in a very old and very small “burned out” trailer, with no electricity or running water. We had a 55 gallon drum that was filled occasionally by a water truck. We had to boil it to kill the mosquito larva.
I killed rattlesnakes and battled with black widow spiders, and hundreds of tarantulas that wanted to nest on the property.
To know that God was taking care of us, had led us, and was using us was comforting. When things got very hard that experience at the border would comfort us repeatedly. It gave us confidence in His purposes for us being there. He put us there, and would not leave us.
When we left Mexico I was a little bit discouraged. “Where is the fruit?” About 6 months after returning to the Bay Area, I was in church when one of the elders came up to inform me that one of the leaders in our Mexico church had named their newborn son after me–Bryan Allen Rodriquez!
That news staggered me, it was like a 2×4 up the side of my head. They saw our steadfastness and wanted to name their son after me. That pretty much undid me. I admit that since then, I’ve struggled with this. I guess you can never fully understand your impact on others.
“You have multiplied, O Lord my God,
your wondrous deeds and your thoughts toward us;
none can compare with you!
I will proclaim and tell of them,
yet they are more than can be told.”
Psalm 40:5, ESV
Alaska Bible Teacher 