The Tale of My Trip

So since today I'm on W&R and and it's also my birthday, I have a moment to tell you all of my trip to the PEP in Portugal. Well, it all started out with me and the other 2 moms of the home taking the first flight from Italy to Barcelona, Spain in the evening, were we then had to wait almost a full day before catching our next flight to Portugal...that's the price you pay when taking cheaper flights: long waiting hours! Anyhow, we get to Spain 40 minutes ahead of time, at about 10:00 pm so we decide to look into sleeping at a cheap youth hostel, which we manage to call and ask if we could come at that time; the place said it was ok, so we go to buy our bus tickets....it was just a time frame of about 2 minutes when it actually happened and I'm still amazed at how good they were...as soon as start heading off to the bus, I realize my handbag is gone! I start looking everywhere to see if I had left it somewhere or something, dropped it..nothing, I start getting panic stricken as the truth of the situation hits me right in the face: MY BAG JUST GOT STOLEN WITH LOTS OF IMPORTANT THINGS IN IT!!!!!....we had been careful and protected our things but I guess this somebody had been studying us and took his chance...well, at this point we could not do much about it, as we did tell the security of the airport but the official police was not there at that hour to get a police report, so we headed of to the youth hostel and decided we would take care of it in the morning. I cannot even begin to describe what I was feeling in that moment, as I had just lost: all my documents, money, camera, mp3 player, cell phones, jewellery, costly sunglasses and other minor stuff..I know, you're probably thinking: "My Lord, how much stuff can you have in one bag?!", but I guess in my mind that was the safest place to keep it all...anyhow, we head off to the hostel, were I pass a very sleepless night, and then first thing in the morning we went back to the airport to get an official police report of the stolen goods. The police was sweet but was not very positive of being able to find any of my documents that day, and without those the only thing I could do was go back to my country. God bless dear Mercy on our team, who never lost faith and was the only one who believed that the Lord wanted me to come to the PEP and would have the documents found that very day, cause' probably the thief only wanted the valuables and would leave the documents in some trash by the airport. Well, at this point since I could not go anywhere but back to Italy, we book another flight for me to go back the next day, while the other girls would continue on in their trip. So after saying goodbye to them, I take a bus back to the hostel where I would spend the night and then catch the flight the next day......as soon as I step out of the bus, the cell phone in my pocket rings(Mercy decided to lend me hers in case of emergency), and it's someone from my home telling me to run back to the airport cause all my documents had just been found!!!!!! I could hardly believe it, it was too good to be true, but when I went to look if there was another bus heading back to the airport, there was none, only one in half hour! What to do...well, the Lord was in total control, and in that moment a bus driver saw me and between english and spanish I told him I needed to get back to the airport very quick or I would miss my flight, so he said he would take me but he was just waiting for one more person..so here I was, having basically an entire bus to myself, that was not supposed to take me, heading to the airport just one hour before my flight to Portugal!! Talk about miracles, this was a major one and so encouraging, as I really had little or no faith that I was actually going to make it there. As soon as I got to the airport, Mercy told me that she and the other girl had been casually walking in front of the police office, when the guys fromthe morning saw them and told them about the documents..of course all the valuables where gone, but in that moment the fact that I was gonna be able to head off to Portugal was such a victory that the stolen stuff was not such a mjor trial anymore and anyhow with time can be replaced. So we finally get on the plane and head out, and I'm so thankful that the Lord worked it all out for good as it was really awesome and not something I would have wanted to miss. Of course this whole thing really did teach me quite a few lessons, especially having faith, as I tend to worry alot and not put my complete trust in the Lord. Also the fact of having put all that stuff in one bag was not the wisest thing to, but I guess expirience is a great teacher. Well, that's about it, will put up a couple of pics of me in Portugal....bye you all...