Peregrina en este mundo: The Aguas Calientes´adventure

´Be careful of what you asked for, because you might just get it.´ Just when I thought to myself: ´how could I learn to trust God if everything is going so smoothly here?´, God put me in a situation where I could learn to trust him and to let him look after me.

Recently, I´ve been enjoying the resources from a church called Sovereign Grace Ministries (CJ Mahaney, Joshua Harris, etc). I´ve been reading their church members´ blog and found out about their new church plant in Aguas Calientes: Iglesia Cristiana Gracia Soberana de Aguas Calientes. I wasn´t sure if I´d be visiting the church because I couldn´t find the church address anywhere and I wasn´t sure if Carolyn, the blog´s writer, would reply to my request for the church address in time (because I emailed her at the last minute). But she did!:)

So when everyone went back to Qro after the conference, I stayed there by myself. I was really tight on money and I didn´t bring my credit/debit card with me. I insisted on staying despite my tight budget because I thought I´ve come a long way here, it´d be ashamed not to visit the church. When I rang the pastor´s number, I got to speak to his brother, Esteban, who is willing to speak English with me (pheww, what a relief not having to speak Spanish on the phone:)). When I tried to check the direction of the church with him, he offered to pick me up from the hotel and I accepted his kind offer.

On the next day, I was waiting and waiting at the hotel until pass 11 am (the service starts at 11am). But no one was coming to pick me up. It was really hard not being able to contact them and to be uncontactable. Not wanting to miss the church service, I decided to take a cab despite my lack of budget. The cab driver was following the address that Carolyn gave me, but we couldn´t find the church. Having told my situation to the driver, he kindly stop the taxi meter when it got to 30 pesos and went around for the next 30 mins to help me find the church. Finally I asked him to let me off at a hotel so I could ask around. After asking at the hotel, I went around the area and still couldn´t find the church. I asked another people and they kindly gave me lift in their car and helped me try to find the church. Still we couldn´t find the church......

I was stranded on the deserted street of Aguas Calientes with only 220 pesos. I don´t know how much it would cost me to take a bus from Aguas to Qro (It would definitely be more than 190 pesos). If I take another cab to go the Central de Autobus it would cost me at least another 30 pesos and I doubt that 190 pesos would be enough to take me back to Qro. At that moment, the thought of not being able to go back to Quetaro really scared me......

I tried to use the public phone to ring the pastor´s number, but the public phone around there needs a card different from mine and it doesn´t accept coin either. I have my Australian mobile phone, but I couldn´t ring the numbers because I need the city code to make a call from overseas phone. By God´s providence, I was able to contact Antonio, my tech savvy friend in Mexico City. He searched the city code and I was able to contact the people from the church - finally. It turned out that their car broke down and they´re only able to pick me up from the hotel 30 mins before I rang them. But I have already left the hotel and they couldn´t contact me.

By that time, the church service has already finished. But they have a special baptism event on that Sunday and they invited me to join them. So they finally found me and picked me up from where I was. It turned out that it was the first Sunday that they moved their church service to a new location - that´s why I couldn´t find the church!

It was such a blessed experience! I could see how God´s providence was at work in my situation:

- The kind taxi drive who is willing to stop the taxi meter and help me find the church.
- The family who is completely a stranger to me was willing to take me in their car and drove me around to help me find the church.
- Antonio who was happened to be in front of his internet and was able to find the city code for me.
- The kindness and the generosity of the Sovereign Grace family in Aguas: Raul Jaime´s family who picked me up from where I was stranded and gave me a lift to the central, Pastor Elias Reyes and the church family who let me witness their very first baptism and who invited me to have lunch with them, Esteban who welcomed me as a sister and insisted to pay for my bus ticket to Queretaro without him knowing my situation (Esteban kept reminding me to accept their kindness because that´s what the Bible is teaching us: to treat God´s people with that kind of hospitality).