Accident in Sacapulas, July 17

We left Uspantan around 8:30 in the morning, about 30-40 minutes behind Ronny—the driver for the team. Roger, the missionary, called Ronny to get his location and learned that the brakes failed on the van and they had collided with another van in Sacapulas. Finding them in Sacapulas was no problem as the two crashed vehicles completely blocked the street. A crowd of people gathered around watching. Ronny was understandably emotional and upset. He kept saying how he had wanted to do a good job. The miracle in all of this was that no one was hurt—not a single pedestrian, the driver of the other van, nor one of the 12 passengers in Ronny’s van. Garry Eudy, team leader and former missionary in Guatemala, was talking to people up and down the street and finding out where the believers lived. The collision occurred right in front of a Christian home, and the house directly across the street was owned by a Christian family. It was empty and for rent, but the owner invited us inside to get us out of the sun and allowed us to use the bathroom there. We took tons of pictures from the balcony of that house.

Shortly after the vehicles were separated and the street cleared, Roger came to tell us that we needed to get out of there. Our instructions were to leave the house two at a time, with a few minutes delay between departures. We were to go to the end of the street, turn right and turn right again at the end of the block and walk up the hill to another safe house which Garry located. We waited there another half hour until the pastor of the church in Uspantan showed up and prayed with all of us. The pastor had gotten a man from the church to come in his van to drive the team to Guatemala City. Roger drove the SUV with the luggage. Garry Eudy rode with him. Unfortunately, we had to leave Ronny behind to wait for the insurance adjustor. To have that many gringos in one place was not helping the situation.

We stopped for lunch in a beautiful old hotel in Chichicastenango. The plan was to go on to Guatemala City with a brief stop in Antigua so the team could do a little shopping and enjoy the beautiful ancient city. Shortly after leaving Chichicastenango, we ran into traffic problems. We eventually learned that a bridge was being paved and the traffic was stopped in both directions. Though I had not been paying attention to the time, I would say that we were stopped, engine off stopped, for a couple of hours.

Meanwhile, Vickie had been on the phone with Ronny. He had quite an experience after we left. Family members of the other driver showed up with the intention of extorting money from the rich North Americans. When they realized that we had disappeared, they came after Ronny and began throwing rocks at him. One of the Christians brought Ronny into his house to protect him. He was only there a few minutes when he received a call from one of the policemen telling him to quick sneak out the back way and run into the woods to a place where the policeman would pick him up. The policeman told him to get down on the floor of his jeep where he would not be seen, because the crowd had intentions to kill him. Ronny was dropped off at a bus stop where he caught a bus going to Guatemala City. Because Ronny and Vickie were staying in touch on their cell phones, and because the traffic had stopped, Ronny was able to get off the bus and walk to where we were stopped and ride back to Guatemala City with the rest of the team. The team did not get to do any shopping or any tourist activities, but they did see the mighty hand of God protecting and directing. Hardly anything went according to our plans, but God’s plans were not thwarted.

“The Lord says, "My thoughts are not like your thoughts. Your ways are not like my ways. Just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.”
Isaiah 55:8-9

“People may make plans in their minds, but only the Lord can make them come true.”
Proverbs 16:1 (New Century Version)