what I will tell you | waco, tx

I won’t tell you how fast Grant was driving through a 350 kilometer stretch of Mexican desert this morning, but I will tell you that we shaved two hours off our estimated travel time from Zacatecas to Nuevo Laredo, and that is saying something – either about Grant’s driving or about the power of prayer, or maybe both. Anyway, we made it to the border around 1 p.m., having stopped only once for gas - not that there were that many options of places to stop anyway. The early-morning drive through the barren land was gorgeous; I knitted and Titus slept and it went so smoothly.

We got to the border and successfully cancelled our temporary importation permit for the Jimmy, which was in Scott’s name (long story). So that was a huge blessing! A few minutes later, it was time to hand over our documentation to get ourselves into the country. I won’t tell you the race or ethnicity of the agent, but our conversation with him went something like this:

Agent: Where ya comin’ from and where ya goin’?

Grant: We’re coming all the way from Michoacan and going all the way to Illinois..

Agent: What in the world are you doing that for? (Good question).

Grant: Well we live in Michoacan. We’re missionaries with a Christian church.

Agent: What?! You tryin’ to save the world or somethin’? Save the world and have a kid at the same time. There just ain’t enough hours in the day to do that. (Yes, sir, we’re finding that to be more true every day). All right, you got anything to declare before I open up and see for myself?

Grant: Well, we have this apple (with a sticker on it showing it to be a product of the USA) – but if it came from the U.S. to begin with can we hang on to it?

Agent: Nope, nope. Man, you got a lot of stuff back here… *slams trunk shut*. You have “this much” (puts fingers about an inch apart) leeway because you’re parents and you’re working for the Lord. I’ll let you by this time with just a warning…. about the apple.

So we were through there in record time and after stopping briefly to get gas and change Titus’s diaper (or… his entire outfit), we switched drivers and kept trucking north. I got to drive through southern Texas, downtown San Antonio, and downtown Austin (although I’m not sure as that one counts as driving – more like, I got to sit at the wheel and hit the brake pedal every two feet while traffic crawled through the city). Anyway, we thought about stopping several times but after concluding that part of the reason for making such good time was eliminating stops, we went all the way to Round Rock, where we got burritos at Freebird for supper. I got to spend a quick 45 minutes at the Round Rock Premium Outlets while Grant hopped on the internet at Starbucks and researched hotels. As a side note, there is nothing that works better at demotivating me to buy clothes than to attempt to shop in a hurry while carrying a six-month-old in a front pack and needing to go to the bathroom very badly. After that we did a run (somewhat literally, as they were about to close) through IKEA just for fun before putting Titus to sleep and… getting back on the interstate. We’ll post this once we stop for the night; probably in Waco, Texas.

I won’t tell you that we deserve so many prayers, but I will tell you that God has heard and answered every single one that you’ve sent up on our behalf today – things have gone unbelievably well and the trip has been downright enjoyable.