KDurant7 blog adventures

Bogota, Colombia 1987

For a couple a couple of years Regina and I owned a Ford Fairmont in Bogota but it had been purchased in Caracas, Venezuela so the vehicle had a tourist visa to circulate in Colombia. Every four months we would need to drive from Bogota to the border of Venezuela to renew the visa, which was a one way 18-hour trip, and then the same mountainous drive back. We could not afford to change the tag as the import tax was twice what we paid for the car! On one trip, on a misty trip at midnight, the transmission started slipping and the car stopped on the side of the road! We were 5 hours away from Bogota or 5 hours away from Bucaramanga, which was more in the direction we were headed. We got out of the car and started walking praying someone could take us in for the night and after one hour, on a totally dark isolated road, a small motel appeared. Thankfully, we were able to spend the night there. The next day we found a wrecker service nearby and he agreed to tow us 5 hours to Bucaramanga for $50, a miracle! Arriving there we went to the side of town where car repairs are done and a man seeing us in the wrecker, obviously being a shop owner, flagged us down and asked what repair we needed. I told him about the transmission, and he said, leave it here, you can spend the night with us and your car will be fixed in the morning. He even said, “I will be your angel, don’t worry about anything!” His wife fed us dinner and breakfast and by noon he said, “It’s done, only $150 for parts”. What, only that!? That was close to about all we had, and I was worried about how to pay the bill that I estimated would be four times that! Praising God, we continued on our journey and made it to the border before the visa expiration date or we would have gotten a huge fine. Regina and I were in awe of how the Lord took care of us all the way there and back! We experienced how God’s provisions are real when one is helpless and in trouble. Psalm 121:8 is real, “The Lord shall preserve your going out and your coming in, from this time forth, and even forevermore”