Stories From The Road - Seeking The Blessing

Stories From The Road

I have been asked to write down some of the stories from being a truck driver for 25 years. This is the first of these stories. I will post more as I can remember them and I have time to write them down.

Seeking The Blessing

I had a habit of taking my Bible into restaurants to read while my meal was being prepared as well as while I was eating. One evening I stopped at a restaurant that had some extra space around back where I could park my truck and avoid truck stop food. I can’t remember exactly where the diner was located. It was either in rural Missouri or Iowa.

When I entered the café there were only two tables occupied. The waitress walked me past the first occupied table and seated me next to the table where two couples were engaged in a deep conversation. One couple was older and the other was a young couple.

Just before I finished my dinner and time in the Word I overheard the younger couple say the name of a town that I had heard of before, Baborigame. I have friends who had been translating the Bible, at that time, for 20 years into the language of the Tepehuan Indians. Baborigame is a small village high up in the mountains outside Chihuahua, Mexico.

I gathered my things to leave and as I passed their table I paused for a few seconds as I debated whether to interrupt their conversation or not. I finally asked for their forgiveness as I broke into their discussion. I asked them if I had heard them correctly and they all looked very surprised when I said, “Baborigame.” I told them of my friends, Kevin and Wendy Case, who had been serving the Lord in this tiny village for so long. I asked if they were praying about going and serving with the team there with New Tribes Missions. The younger couple said they were praying about it. I let them know I would be praying for them and I left.

Several years went by when I was attending a mission conference where Kevin and Wendy were being featured, telling the congregation of their work in Mexico. Kevin came up to me and said he needed to talk to me. We went out for lunch after the service and he asked if I remembered the incident at the little restaurant with the two couples. I did not remember encounter until he started recounting to me what had happened. He told me that the younger couple was asking her parents for their blessing to go to the mission field where they felt the Lord was calling them.

Her parents were against them going to Mexico. They felt their daughter and son-in-law were too young and were misinterpreting whatever it was the Lord was doing in their lives. Kevin told me that when I spoke up they were forced to realize that God was at work. The older couple came to see how many things God had to arrange to accomplish this divine appointment.

1. Truck driver from Phoenix at that particular restaurant at that time.

2. Truck driver knew one of the couples on the Baborigame team.

3. Truck driver actually remembered the name of the village although he had never been there.

4. Waitress sat truck driver close enough to overhear their conversation.

5. You could probably see more God workings than I have noted here.

Kevin said that her parents figured if God had orchestrated everything needed to put me there at the same time as the blessing was being sought that He must have the whole thing under control. Therefore, they gave the young people their blessing. Kevin said that that couple had joined them in translating the scripture in Baborigame.

I knew God had called me into ministry, yet I was getting very anxious about still being out on the road. I thought I was out there not being of any use the kingdom of Christ. The Lord used this to illustrate to me that He was in control and I was right where He wanted me.  Just think of the blessings I would have missed out on if I would have been impatient and tried to do what God had called me to do but in my timing rather than his. I pray I never get running ahead of the Lord and bypass the divine appointments He has ordained for me.