When the Bus Never Comes

Recently, we took our first adventure by bus. The property where we are staying doesn’t have wifi, and we were all feeling pretty desperate to talk to family and get some stuff done like blogs and treasurer duties. We decided to take the bus to a mall, Mall Plaza Tobalaba. We caught the bus at the end of our road no problem, and it took us straight to the mall. This mall was huge, super nice, and very crowded. We found a Starbucks and did our thing with the wifi. 

Now here’s where it gets interesting. Our ministry host had told us to catch the bus by 8, that way it wouldn’t be completely dark yet. On our way to the bus stop, we decided to get some money out at an ATM, but it wouldn’t work for some reason. So we tried a different ATM. Same story. We finally gave up, but we didn’t get to the bus stop until about 8:30, when it was definitely getting dark. We stood at this very busy bus stop right outside the mall for about 20 minutes as bus after bus pulled up. All we really knew was that we needed to get on the blue C bus. We weren’t sure what the town was called where we were staying (rookie move), or how often the bus ran, or if we were even at the right bus stop. At this point, I started getting anxious. Not because I felt unsafe – even though it was dark by now, we were in a well lit area right by the mall which was still open, we had two guys with us, and we had a phone that we could call our ministry hosts as a last resort. I felt anxious and frustrated by the language barrier and the feeling of helplessness because we couldn’t even ask anyone or read the signs at the bus stop. The rest of my team was laughing and joking, while I stood there watching as more and more not blue buses came by. I got this tightness in my chest. Why couldn’t this be easy? So many things have been hard since we’ve been in Chile. Anyone who knows me, knows I’m a creature of habit. I have my routines and I stick to them. I rarely venture out of my comfort zone. If I know the way home, I’m not going to take a shortcut. 

As I kept standing there working myself into panic, I realized this situation was a metaphor for my life. I always like to be in control. I like routine because I can control it. I like predictability. But God’s not predictable, or safe. God asks us to do radical things, like step out in faith, go and tell the nations about him, die to ourselves daily, and other things that are not comfortable. I did the big step by saying yes to the World Race, but now that I’m here in Chile, I’m still trying to hold onto control. But in this moment at the bus stop, I didn’t have control. Did I really trust God in this moment? Finally I started praying, and my anxiety started to release. One of my teammates, Zach, started asking people around us if they spoke English. He finally found a girl who did and was actually waiting for the same bus as we were. She said it would come in 20 minutes. So we were in the right place the whole time, we were just getting impatient. I do the same thing with God. I want his promises now. I want to see change now. I want my circumstances to be better now. But that’s not how God works. He controls the timing, and thank goodness he does, because I would definitely screw it up. 

This is just one of the many lessons I’m sure I will learn during this month in Chile. I can’t to see what else He has in store for me.