God as Provider
God often introduces us to specific parts of His character during different seasons of our lives. We know God is our Father, our Friend, our Comforter, and so much more. And while we know these things about God in our minds, there comes a season where God reveals a specific attribute of himself to our hearts, solidifying it within us where we can say, “God, I have seen and I know, You are this to me.”
Our School to the Nations team spent twenty days in Ecuador to film “The HOPE” for the Afro-Ecuadorian people. Over our time there, we faced trial after trial, both as a team and individually. There were troubles with customs, sickness among our team members, a stolen cellphone, a broken-down van, family crises back home, and pesky birds that consistently disrupted our audio recording. One of our Ecuadorian friends asked if this stuff always happens to us because it was too much!
Yet, in every situation, God provided fully and abundantly more than we imagined. Over and over again, He was there. Sometimes mending the situation, other times unifying us deeper with our Ecuadorian team, allowing us to walk through trials together. They became our family, as Christ has united us through His love, which will not be stopped by culture or language barriers.
In our last few days in Ecuador, the country went into political strife and all the roads to the airport were blocked by protestors. Being over eight hours away, we had no way out of the country and no idea how long the strife would last. All we knew to do was pray and trust God to provide for us. After an uncertain few days, we suddenly found ourselves on a small six-seater plane flying out of an abandoned airport with a flight school pilot we met through a completely random connection. Dropping us off on the backside of the Quito airport, we were able to make our flight and arrive home safely.
I have always known God is our Provider, but I had never experienced it like this before. Though we faced trial after trial, God proved, again and again, that He was with us and we could trust in Him. Even when we were trapped in Ecuador with seemingly no way out, God provided and showed us that He is not limited by our circumstances. In addition, all our footage and audio ended up being free of birds and exactly what we needed to produce “The HOPE” to be used for evangelism and discipleship among the Afro-Ecuadorians. God is not just a provider, He is our Provider, and we can trust in Him.