The Lost Suitcase

“My thoughts are not your thoughts, and my ways are not your ways, says the Lord.” — from Isaiah 55

Jim decided that God was sending him to Ecuador, a country in South America, and in February 1952 he sailed there with a friend named Pete Fleming. In April, Betty sailed to Ecuador too. She went as a missionary in her own right, with no promise from Jim. She had trained to write down languages that had never been written.

First she learned Spanish in Quito, a city high up in the mountains. Then she went down into the warm, wet forest on the western side of the mountains. The people there were called the Colorados, because the men coloured their hair bright red with paste from a seed. Their language had never been written down. Betty’s job was to learn it from the very beginning.

She needed a helper who could speak both Colorado and Spanish. God gave her a wonderful one: a man named Macario, who loved Jesus. Day after day they sat together. He said words, and she wrote them down on cards. Slowly, the shape of the language began to appear.

Then something terrible happened. Macario was killed by men in a quarrel over a piece of land. Betty was heartbroken. She had lost a friend and a brother in Christ, and there was no one else who could help her in the same way.

Soon afterwards, Betty packed all her language notes into a suitcase, so they could go to the missionaries who would carry on the work. The suitcase was stolen from the back of a truck, and it was never found. There were no copies. Almost all her work was gone. Betty asked God why. He did not tell her. So she decided she would go on trusting him, even without an answer.

Sometimes we pray and work hard, and things still go wrong. God does not always tell us why. But we can tell him honestly how we feel, and keep trusting him, because he is good even when we do not understand.

Dear God, when things go wrong and I do not understand why, help me to keep trusting you. Thank you that your ways are higher than mine. Amen.