God Provides

Are you sure that miracles don't happen any more?  I just had a front row seat in experiencing one.
     Maria, a part of Suzy's extended family, is a Lencan Honduran.  She has a little girl named Evelyn, who will soon be 3 years old.  They live with Suzy and her girls.  She comes from a tiny village in Lenca territory, called La Paz.  A few days ago she was talking with Amanda and told her there was a famine in her family's area and people were starving.  She has a 7 month old nephew who was getting weak from lack of food.  Amanda was ready to go get food and take it to them.  When she asked if I wanted to go along,  I was all for that.  We went to a super store, similar to a Sam's Club, or Costco, and bought about 250 pounds of staples-corn meal flour, called maseca, rice, red beans, baby formula powder, and several other staples.  Saturday morning we loaded up the car and Mari, Maria, little Evelyn, Amanda and I were off.
     Maria had told us vaguely that her family lives outside Marcala, in the La Paz Dept. of Honduras.  La Paz is where the indigenous Lencas have lived for hundreds of years.  We were ready, we thought for anything, but the goal was to deliver the food as quickly as possible.  We drove to Marcala without incident.  As we were eating lunch we tried to get clearer directions of where to go from there.  Maria had been there many times, but only  by bus, as she doesn't drive and doesn't have a car.  So I can understand why her directions were hazy at best.  What we couldn't get clear was how far from town it was and exactly how we would actually get to the house.from the town of Marcala.  Well, Amanda went next door, to a gun shop no less, to ask for help to get the food delivered.  No less than a Red Cross volunteer was working there and she volunteered another Red Cross volunteer to drive the food there in the Red Cross truck!  His name is Israel and he was as helpful and cheerful a young man as you can imagine.  He drove us and the food there-a journey we had thought might be a few minutes turned into an hour and a half on dirt roads.  Maria suddenly called out stop! and we said where?  It was in the middle of nothing visible but trees and hillsides.  Israel stopped the truck and we looked for a house.  Turns out the house we were looking for was down a steep ravine that dropped precariously in places.  Undaunted, Israel put 100 pounds of maseca on his shoulders and scampered down the ravine (off the roadside and into the woods) and made 4 trips while Amanda, Mari, and I took a single tiny load cautiously down the hillside and into the house.  Once there we noticed, without looking too carefully, there was not a scrap of anything resembling food to be found in the two room house.  It was neat, but barren of anything edible.  The journey up into the mountains had been considerably longer than we had anticipated, but the amazing thing is that we had no idea of how to get there, and yet God provided.  Israel was exactly what we needed at the exact moment we needed it.  He was strong and sure footed and an excellent driver.  He was friendly and accommodating and happy to be useful.  What a wonderful day it was.  The best thing of all is that Maria's family got the food that was so needed.  The baby desperately needed the formula we brought, as he was a seven month old the size of a small 3 month old.  I don't think he could have weighed 12 pounds.and the others really needed that food.  In all it had been about a 6 hour trip, one way, and worth every minute of it.  Best of all is how people just came to our aid at the precise minute it was needed.  We could never had taken all that food down steep hillside by ourselves.  It was not a trip carefully orchestrated in advance down to the last the most minute detail.  We just had a general idea of getting food to people in need.  God showed the way in the guise of the Red Cross volunteers at the gun shop and Israel and the truck.  We didn't and couldn't have planned it that way. 
     This is not the first time God has provided.  I was not always so quick it recognize it as God's work.  Many times in my life I could have easily been ineffective or even harmed by being too ignorant or naive in my actions.  There have been times I didn't see the miracle of God sending me help when I needed it or that the  someone who stepped in or "just happened" to be where I needed someone to be was God's work.  I am glad God is teaching me to see with eyes of faith.  Thanks be to God!  Miracles do happen..  God does provide.