When you know that God is with you…a driving close call.

Anyone who has visited Ethiopia knows that at times driving here can feel a bit dicey. City traffic is one thing as you feel cramped for space, but driving outside of the city comes with its own risks.

One road is well known for its share of fatal accidents. There are times where we drive the stretch of road from Addis to Mojo and will see 3 or 4 terrible accidents that had not yet been removed, all within a mere 70 kilometers of road. This two lane road that has trucks moving and passing at high speeds into oncoming lanes has meant that we never travel this road after dark. It is just too dangerous and many people have become statistics on it.

Last week we had our own close call. We were traveling back from the South, having had a meeting about our adoption when I saw the semi truck barreling down on us in my lane. I did the customary, flashing of my lights at him and started to slow down so that we could get back into his lane of traffic after passing someone. He squeezed back into his lane, no problem.

But I never saw the pickup truck coming that was tailgating him.

And there we were in slow motion, watching as a pickup truck was coming straight for us. I flashed my lights at him and he flashed his at me. My lights. His lights. My lights. His lights. I continued to slow as much as I could and ran off of the road onto the shoulder just as he locked up his brakes and collided into the back 6 inches of the Land Cruiser. The driver of the pickup was driving like an idiot, but God protected us and him.

Praise God we did not even feel a jolt. No one was hurt. Not even a scratch or a bruise. A small dent and a bit of scratched paint on the Land Cruiser. No problem. A bit shaken. Okay, I was shaken a lot more than a bit.

A close call. Way too close. However, God was with us. His hand was on that whole situation. He either moved the pickup or he moved us, because the sheer physics of the situation did not add up. He protected our growing family and also the driver of the pickup.

We are grateful to God…and I think I may avoid driving that road for some time.