American Baptist International Ministries

The moon and a planet were visible when we arose in the morning

So there I was at 2:30 AM in a van with six Zambian team members. The people navigating the trip had given up finding our location in the dark and we had pulled over in front of a small building so we could sleep until daylight.

Approximately 15 minutes earlier - we had turned around after driving in one direction for some time, slowing to examine buildings we thought might be churches and keeping watch for a tree that seemed particularly large.

Apx. 1 hr earlier - the van followed a driveway to a home. Fires were burning on the ground and there were many people gathered in the yard. We quickly learned that we had driven up to a funeral. In Zambia, friends and relatives of the deceased spend the night at the home of mourners. The figures of many people sleeping on the ground beneath chitenges (colorful African cloth) were illuminated by the van's headlamps. People there were familiar with the church we were looking for, which we were told was not far and has a big tree outside.

12 hours earlier - we departed a city less than 300 miles away for the destination church, the grounds of which was to be the site of a multi-day meeting of an association of area churches.

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So, unable to find our destination, we pulled over to sleep in the van. There were seven of us in the 8 passenger van, and as pink spread across the horizon just 3 hours later, we awoke and stepped outside. Shortly after, the team leader found someone to ask for assistance. We boarded the van again and, aided by daylight, headed toward the direction from which we originally came. Just 6 km (3.7 miles) down the road we arrived at the church we had passed in the night - and the large tree out front.

The moon and a planet were still visible as the sun rose upon our resting place