Good Morning America!

If you read Justin's post, you know the meaning behind the title of this post:) When I woke up in the states yesterday morning, I cracked a smile and said to myself, "Good morning America!" It's crazy how I could be on the other side of the world a few days ago and how I will be flying across the other ocean today to get to China, but I feel extremely blessed by how well my body has taken the traveling so far.

I just want to share one last story of God's goodness before I go.

One afternoon Marsha and I decided to go around town meeting people and practicing our Arabic. We went with open eyes for what God wanted to show us. We saw a man holding a little girl wearing an eye patch, so we stopped to pray for her. The father spoke great English and said that although they were Muslim he knows that people can be healed in the name of Jesus. We had the opportunity to speak with some different groups of people, but as we started looking for somewhere to grab lunch, we realized that Marsha's passport was missing!

As we retraced our steps, we asked God for pictures that would lead us to the passport. The Chiccle boy kept coming to mind, but Marsha felt like God wanted us to continue to focus on meeting people rather than worrying too much about the passport. God gave me two other pictures as well. He reminded me of a time when my family was vacationing in Mexico and our shell necklace got lost in the ocean. My siblings and I prayed for the necklace to be found, and the next morning, I found it in the waves. From this picture, I gathered that we would find the passport the next day, and I was comforted because if God cared enough to help me find a shell necklace in the sands of an ocean, how much more would He care to help us find a passport along the side of the road. The other picture I had was of someone handing the passport to Marsha. So I decided that we wouldn't find the passport along the road--someone would actually return it to her.

But I still had this picture of the little gum seller, so when we saw what looked like another Chiccle boy across the street, we went to meet him. It turned out he was not a Chiccle boy, just a Brazil fan. However, there was some kids playing in the alley behind him, so we approached them to ask if they had seen the passport. The family living there invited us in to their home. We were able to practice Arabic with them, and they fed us a delicious meal (we were starving by this point). So Marsha was right. God didn't want us to worry. He wanted to bless us with kindness.

Many people helped us that day, including our friend R* and our host family's niece, F*. Everyone told us that if someone found the passport they would return it to the police, so we made an appointment to go see the passport office the next morning. So, the next morning as we were walking through the market on our way to the passport office, this man yells after us, "Mademoiselle!" We turned around and "bam!" the man slapped Marsha in the head with her passport! He was very distressed that she had lost her passport. He had seen us around town earlier that week and recognized Marsha's picture. He had been searching for us since 7 am!

The steadfast love of the Lord endures forever.