OPEN DOORS CAN CHANGE LIVES!

We met Sadie walking alone on the road to El Rosario.

She was walking along the road in the middle of nowhere, carrying an old pink backpack. We first saw her on the edge of Nuevo Progreso when we drove east toward the new settlement of San Francisco. Later on our return we saw her again, this time she had lost one shoe wading through a patch of slimy, gripping mud. She was working the stubborn shoe loose from at least six inches of the brown stuff, grinning and babbling all the while. Had she walked all that distance from town? Did she have a need so great that she had to make such a long trip on foot? What was her story.

Lloyd stopped the Jeep and asked her where she lived. We could make out the words El Rosario, which is a small place past San Francisco. That was still quite a distance for her to travel on foot. It could have been another two miles to where she said she lived. "Should we take her home?" he asked.

In the past we've made many new friends by offering them rides home. In this way we can see where they live and what help they might need. It's another open door. And we've learned that open doors can change lives, and of course prayer is the key. I asked the happy little woman for her name and found she was hard of hearing. Finally she mumbled something unintelligible. Then I asked if she would write her name in my notebook. But the road was so rough that the name she wrote was not clear. It looked like Sadie, so that's who she'll be to us.

It was difficult to find where she lived, she enjoyed riding in the Jeep so much that she missed her turn into El Rosario. Backtracking, she finally saw something familiar and we pulled over and helped her out of the Jeep. We gave her some small blankets, some beans and something to drink and told her we'd bring her some good shoes for walking. Still mumbling and grinning, she made her way down the lane.

Friendly young men cutting firewood along the road told us that no matter what the weather, the old woman made that same long trek to Nuevo Progreso and back every day!

"Behold, I have set before thee an open door, and no man can shut it." Revelation 3:8