God in Holbox

For the week of 17-21 April, I was invited to play music with my church group (Confraternidad) at a youth camp on an island called Holbox. I had never heard of it, but the island is near Cancun and is absolutely beautiful. I didn’t have any idea what I was getting into when I agreed to go, but I figured that a week playing praise and worship music on an island had to be a good thing. It wasn’t until a day or two before leaving that I realized that the plan was for us to leave Merida at midnight to arrive at the port city by 6am. They asked me if I could borrow the big green van from Byron, which only Americans are allowed to drive…meaning me. I understood that it was to take 4 hours to get there, but we needed the extra time to get all of our stuff on the 6am ferry to cross to the island. I knew it would be a very long night, but I also knew I had to trust God on this one since He is sovereign and good, and there was no easy way out. He showed up in so many ways to provide for us and satisfy us.

We ended up leaving at about 1:30am which is culturally acceptable, but still a bit disconcerting when you know you are the only forced to stay up all night. Nevertheless, the eleven of us left in high spirits and it wasn’t long before almost all of them were asleep. I was so thankful for Roberto who, as my navigator, promised to stay up all night with me to help keep me awake.

The trip was going quite swimmingly until about 4:30am when we crossed some border and were forced to stop by some border patrol guys. They wanted to know our reason for driving so late and if this group of Mexicans was my family. I told him what we were doing and he asked to see my license and the permit for the van. I showed him the paperwork that I had on the van and he pointed out that the van’s permit was expired. Whoops. I didn’t know if I should try to argue with him that the law has changed and that the van is legal as long as Byron is, so I let Roberto take over. After about 20 minutes of private discussions, Roberto returned saying that the officer wanted 500 pesos (about $50) to let us go. If not, we would have had to unload everything from the van and it would have had to stay there. We decided to pay and just be done with it.

We got back on the road and the others got back to sleep and we kept plugging along. By about 6am I was so tired and hungry that I couldn’t see straight. I told Roberto that I was seeing more than one road and he advised that I just drive down the middle one. He also kept telling me that he thought we were very close, but that went on for at least an hour. We finally arrived at around 6:30 to the port city and decided to wait until the 8:30 ferry to cross. We waited around and then loaded all of our stuff (11 people’s baggage for a week trip plus all of our music equipment, including my drum set) on the ferry and made the crossing. I was trying to keep my spirits up, but once we got on the island, I felt a deep sense of God’s beauty and was happy to be there. We took golf cart taxis to the church and set up all of our music equipment and then practiced for about an hour. It was very refreshing to be worshipping God in such a beautiful place.

When we finished practicing after noon, I was very tired and hungry, with a serious headache coming on. I decided that I needed to eat to be able to sleep so I headed out by foot in search of food. I had no idea where to go, but there had to be restaurants. The first one I came to was a little tent with about 10 folks sitting around laughing, but I decided to walk on in search of a more established looking place. Just as I was passing by, I heard a lady’s voice call out, “Noah!” I was shocked! I didn’t know anybody here. I looked over and didn’t recognize anybody, but she kept calling me and asking me to come over. After a few awkward minutes of trying to figure out whom this lady was (I am still not totally sure, but apparently I met her at a recent birthday party in Merida), she asked me what I was doing. I told her I was playing for a camp and presently in search of food and she invited me to eat with them since they all run the restaurant. They served me three very large empanadas with chicken and cheese, which were absolutely wonderful, and a huge cup of my favorite drink, horchata, and then wouldn’t accept any money for the trouble. God is so good. When I was feeling pretty low, He provided these sweet people to meet my needs and provide some great conversation as well.

The whole week was full of pleasant surprises including great times of corporate worship, sweet personal time with God, great lessons from speakers, new relationships formed with kids and other leaders, and I even got to see 4 dolphins swimming right next to the ferry on one of my unscheduled crosses. They were so beautiful and graceful.

The whole experience was such a great reminder to me to continue to trust God to provide all of my needs, far more than I even know to ask. This is the faith that pleases God, glorifies His matchless ability to meet all of our needs, satisfies us and keeps us from becoming complaining, doubting, weak people. I needed such a great week of reminders.