God has again provided and taken care of our practical needs. But it never stops there, He always does so much more, He definitely sees the big picture and with God things don’t just happen by accident.
Since last summer we have been thinking of and wanting to get a bigger car. We often have guests, friends or family members, so we don’t fit in a car of 5. For example right now we have our kids’ friend Jonathan from Costa Rica with us for two months. So we have been looking at different options, but at the same time been hesitant to spend money on a vehicle right now. Few weeks ago we did a trip to Oulu (500 km each way). After paying a train ticket to one of us on the way there and to another one on the way back, Diego decided it was time to get a car. He went online and immediately found a car that stood out to him and it had a good price and low mileage.
The next day Diego and Salla’s dad went to see the car. The owner’s daughter asked Diego which country he is from. Diego told him a little about Costa Rica, said that he was actually just returning from a trip there and went on sharing about the Homes of Hope construction project that he was part of. The girl asked which organization he was with and when Diego answered “YWAM”, she started crying. She was thinking about applying to do the DTS in Tampere ( the new Discipleship Training School starting very close to us in January), but was not sure and she had asked God to confirm it to her during that same exact day that Diego shows up at their house and starts telling about YWAM! Sometimes God answers our prayers in a very concrete (and latino) way!
It was so encouraging to see once again how in our “small daily things” we can be part of what God is doing in other people’s lives and even around the world. Even without a car deal the visit would have been well worth it, but we did end up getting the car as well. It was what we were looking for and after meeting Diego and hearing about the ministry the couple first lowered the price a lot from the original good price and then decided to take a huge amount out of the price as a donation. So Diego drove home that night with a car that meets our current needs and paid only 1/5 of the actual value!
We are thankful – praise God!
All of this is part of the big car story that has followed us since we got married. Cars in Costa Rica have always been a challenge – the roads are so bad and cars and their fixing are so expensive. We have had all kind of miracle stories of how we have got each one of our vehicles and five years ago God surprised us with a ‘every man’s dream car’ through a family that gave us a fancy Chevrolet Silverado pick-up truck. The truck served us well and still continues being in a daily use in missions in Costa Rica.