From camp I decided to ride with Melody Rowe and her mom back to Pensacola where she attended college. We spent the night at her grandmothers house then went to Pensacola beach and PCC the next day. The following day I helped Melody move into her new apartment then they dropped me off close to the interstate. I decided to go to Clearwater next to see my friend Anthony who worked at Lighthouse 2 years ago. It was around 12:00 or 1:00 before I made it out to the on-ramp towards Clearwater, then it started storming really badly so I went to a hotel close by and asked if I could wait out the storm in their lobby; thankfully they decided to let me. When the storm finally ended I went back out and waited for my next ride. After a while a truck pulled over and asked where I was going, I told him, but he said he was only going a few minutes down the road and there wasn't really a good exit there so I told him I would wait for another ride. This was actually the first ride I turned down so far. I waited for what started to feel like forever (but was probably only 30-45 minutes when another truck pulled over and the guy told me he could get me about 30 minutes down the road the only thing is that he asked me to ride in the back of the truck. This was definitely the most miserable ride I've had so far. It was already pretty chilly for shorts and a t-shirt especially with the cloud cover and storm coming through and moving at 80 miles an hour didn't help much. Then towards the end of the ride it started to rain lightly which hurts at that speed!
After he dropped me off I waited under a bridge for the rain to quit again then went back out to the on-ramp. The next person was able to bring me several miles down the road. I couldn't really tell what ethnic background he was from but he still had an accent and seemed to have immigrated from somewhere, he didn't say much and I didn't ask though. I was just happy to get a ride!
After he dropped me off at the exit I waited for about 30 minutes then started to get pretty discouraged. It's not unusual to wait 30 minutes or longer at an exit, but the lack of long rides and the fact that it was already 5:00pm and I hadn't even made it to Tallahassee made me realize that I probably wouldn't make it to Clearwater that day which meant I would have to spend another night under a bridge or find a place to sleep. Then I saw a red Ford truck coming towards me. After hitchhiking awhile you start profiling vehicles on how much of a chance there is of them picking you up, and this was usually the type that would pick me up. I remember praying that God would let it pull over and give me a ride. I have to admit that it wasn't a prayer that had strong faith attached to it, but was more like a desperate plea for help. By His mercy the truck actually did stop and he told me that he could get me to Tallahassee. Well, after talking to him a little while I found out that he was going all the way to Ocala, and that his boss would be driving all the way through Tampa that night! It amazed me that such a little prayer held such power when coming from a child of the King. This has definitely showed me that God is always in control and that nothing is too hard for Him. The man that picked me up was a Brazilian American who worked in the tile flooring business. We had some good conversations just about life and about God. He did have a good bit of knowledge about God and said that he prayed to him often, but I don't know how genuine he was. He told me about what it was like back in Brazil and how good things were down there. He said he planned to go back for the Olympics to be a translator since he know both languages. I remember him telling me that I should go spend some time in Brazil to learn the language and I must admit it does sound pretty good.
We made it to Ocala around 7 or 8 and met up with his boss, they moved some tools and workers to his truck from his bosses truck then we both got back on the road. His boss was also a Brazilian American who had started his own construction company. We talked some about his business and how it was going but for most of the trip we didn't talk much. He dropped me off in Brandon where Anthony was able to pick me up. We went to Starbucks and talked some then went and crashed at his mom's apartment.
No comments:
Post a Comment