Traveling Miracles

Robert Schuller once said, “Impossible situations can become possible miracles.” We often pray that God would prevent us from facing difficulties and trials in our lives. How often have we prayed, “God, if you would just get me out of this situation…”, “God, please rescue me from this trial…” or “God, please let this situation go my way…”? We desire that God would spare us from experiencing pain and suffering for which I think is a normal desire. Who wants to go through surgery or suffer from some form of disease? No one wants to go through these kinds of things, but the fact of life is that we do and we don’t like it. So a normal response is to ask the almighty creator of heaven and earth to help us escape from tragedy. But how often do we pray that God would help us THROUGH the tragedies we face in life? If we know that He goes through every situation with us, that means He shares in our suffering and it is through Him that we come out the other side victorious.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

After spending so many months on the road and enduring long hours in the car, we felt our kids deserved a reward and we couldn’t think of a better one than taking them to Disney World in Orlando, Florida. We were blessed with the opportunity to take our kids there, where on our own we couldn’t have made it happen. So some wonderful people provided the means for which we cannot thank them enough. While there the kids were able to experience the Magic Kingdom and all of its fun and excitement. Of course we only had one day to experience it in, but we left with the desire to return someday and that is a good thing. We tried to cram as much as we could into that single day, but it was a day I’m sure the kids will not soon forget.

So with the blessing of Disney World under our belt, we found ourselves facing yet another trial. We learned that while we needed to get a document for our dog Dutchess from a veterinarian within 48 hours of our flight to Colombia, we also needed to get another document from the USDA (United States Department of Agriculture) giving us their endorsement to take Dutchess with us to Colombia. We had planned on heading to Tampa Florida after Orlando where we would try to sell our car and rent one to go to the airport in Miami. That was our plan, but we have had to learn to be flexible with our plans. We had to go to the USDA in Miami, not Tampa. With that information, we made an appointment with a vet in Miami for the next morning. So we packed up the kids at 4:00 am and headed south towards Miami with the memories of Princesses and Mickey Mouse dancing in our minds.

We knew that our schedule prior to flying out was now going to be extremely tight. We were going to have to do a lot of stuff all at the same time. So when we made it to Miami we took Dutchess straight to the vet and while she was getting shots and groomed, we headed for the USDA office to retrieve the required forms (which God worked a miracle in that they pushed up our appointment on the day of our departure from 10:00am to 8:30am so we could make it to the airport on time), ate lunch, found a hotel for the night, returned the U-Haul trailer (which was another miracle of God that we didn’t have to pay any penalty for returning it in Miami rather than Tampa), picked up Dutchess with the required forms filled out, purchased a travel crate for her and returned some items to Costco to finish out the evening with a nice Peruvian dinner and a dip in the hotel pool for the kids.

Stay tuned for the rest of the story…