There are times in the Christian life when the Lord can seem far away, and their can be a number of reasons for that. I suppose many Christians would say that one loses one's sense of the presence of the Lord when sin has a hold in our lives, and certainly there is great truth in that. It can happen also when the Lord withdraws the sense of his presence for a season in order to stir us up to greater longing for him. Then there are the times when the Lord seems to draw very near, and that is what it is my joy to write about today.
This is written on the day we arrived at Amano, Tuesday, 10th June, at about 1330. I can truly say that I have never experienced such a closeness to the Lord, so that the days of the journey seem already to blur into one miracle of grace and mercy.
We set out on Saturday (7th June) as planned, leaving Johannesburg at about 0715. The roads were easy at that time, of course, and we were soon entering Mokopane, the place where we were robbed previously. Both Tina and I felt nervous going back, and at about 1000 it was already quite busy. We prayed as we came to the town that all the traffic lights would be green - there are about four sets we had to pass through - and they were.
It was a beautiful day and we really enjoyed the drive, seeing Eland and Impala (types of deer) and warthogs with young. At the South African/Botswana border we passed through very easily, crossing the Limpopo going for the first time to see what Botswana was like. The people there are very relaxed and very kind, and we had a good journey to a hotel in Francistown called 'Diggers Inn' named after a local gold mine founded and run by English people. 'Diggers' was very clean and comfortable, but in African style we were given seven TV controllers to try before the receptionist decided to give up - the problem, she said, was batteries which she didn't have. The promised WiFi internet was also not available because the receptionist didn't know how to issue the password! But that's Africa! We had travelled about 800km (500 miles) without incident, although I was somewhat tired.
The next day we made a good start from Francistown and headed for Kazungula, where a ferry crosses the 400m (a little more than 400 yards) wide Zambezi to take passenger into Zambia.
The road in one particular area of Botswana was very rough, badly potholed, but little did we know this was only a taster of what was to come!
Kazungula was a problem for us in some ways. The journey there was about 500km (312 miles), made a bit longer in time by the potholed sections. We got to the ferry about 1500. We had no idea when the best time to cross would be, and we were prepared to overnight in nearby Kisane if it was not practical to cross that afternoon, although we had some reservations about that as Kisane is very much the tourist town for Botswana's Okavango delta and Chobe river and the prices for accommodation are accordingly high.
But on the other hand we had been warned that crossing the Kazungula ferry could take several hours of queueing, plus we had no idea of the cost. So we decided to drive to the ferry, which meant passing through Botswana customs and immigration, to see what the situation was like. We passed maybe eighty or ninety lorries waiting for the ferry, and joined what seemed a fairly short car queue. The ferry is a double pontoon ferry, and within five minutes we were on board, and ten or twelve minutes later in Zambia! Quite clearly the Lord wanted us to go on!
Zambian immigration and customs are both expensive and tough, as well as long-winded. We had more than an hour of mainly waiting for the papers, but we were admitted quite easily. There was no difficulty, and immigration even accepted South African Rand in payment for our visas - normally US dollars or UK pounds are required but all we had of those had gone in the robbery.
Our next problem was that Zambia had very strictly enforced laws about cars having two warning triangles and also two white reflectors on the front of the car and two red at the rear; these are just pieces of reflective tape but the police routinely fine if you don't have them fitted and don't have the triangles.
That was all very well but there were of course no shops selling these things at Kazungula. Zambian police form regularly manned roadblocks at the entrance to towns and sometimes 'in the middle of nowhere' and we were told we would certainly be stopped at least once and fined the standard 50,000 Kwacha (about £6.25; US$12) on the way to Livingstone.
We drove the 70km (about 45 miles) to Livingstone having asked the Lord to help us, and we were stopped twice. In both cases the officers greeted us, asked where we were coming from, welcomed us to Zambia and waved us on without further question!
So we came to Livingstone, asking the Lord to guide us to somewhere that was clean but not expensive. We really had no idea where to go and having visited Livingstone before knew it could be very expensive. In the town we saw the Ngolide Lodge - it somehow looked right and we called in to see if a room was available. It was, at a typical South African overnight B&B price, and the Lord had given us a clean, comfortable room with air conditioning and all else we could need for about £50 (US$100). We slept really well, had a very pleasant breakfast, and then I took off into town to get the warning triangles, reflective tape and change Rand into Kwacha before the drive up to Lusaka.
We had been warned by an Australian businessman that the road from Livingstone to Lusaka was very poor, much worse than anything we had seen in Botswana. He had driven it in his Mercedes and lost two tyres in the process. A taxi driver told me that while it used to take five hours to Lusaka, now it was seven because of this 65km (40 miles) stretch of road - he said most people took the plane because it was so bad.
Still, I don't think anything prepared us for what we were going to encounter. The road, after all, is the T1, Zambia's primary route and the only way from the major tourist area of Livingstone/Victoria Falls to the capital. It's hard to describe the state of the road as we found it. There were short stretches of perhaps 100m (about 100 yards) where there was tarmac with just a crater-like pothole or two. 


But otherwise there was pothole after pothole, sometimes covering half or two thirds of the road, quite often the whole surface had gone and there was just unsurfaced craters. 'Craters' is not an exaggeration: these monsters were 18 inches or more deep. In most places there was a sandy 'soft shoulder' to the road but because trucks and cars used that rather than the road in places that too was cratered. A few occasions we had no road surface and no way to access the 'soft shoulder' either because the drop off the road was too much for our vehicle or because the 'soft shoulder' was also so battered we could not take it.
We took more than two hours to negotiate that section, but we sustained no damage to tyres or mechanically. How did we do it? We didn't - the Lord took us through, and I am not in the least exaggerating. We constantly prayed and thanked the Lord, and there were a good many times when we had to go through craters because there was no choice. You do that in an ordinary car knowing there will be a sickening crunch at some point, probably as the back end goes through as we were fully laden, but never once did that happen. There were time I knew we could not have negotiated a pothole, but it was as if the car 'somehow' was held above the hole. At times like that you know the Lord is with you.
So we got through that, and continued to head for Lusaka, having no idea where to stay. There were more occasional potholes in surprising places, in the sense that we would be on what seemed to be good road in good repair for several or even tens of kilometres, but then a large pothole would be there. On one occasion we were making good speed and just after climbing a hill and about to go into a left hand bend I just knew I must slow down, that round that bend was something we needed to avoid. And surely again it was the Lord, because as the bend came to straight there was another very large pothole, even though for the last 20 minutes or so we had had good road and been able to go along at 120kph (75mph, the legal limit on most Zambian main routes).
We were constantly, utterly and completely dependent on the Lord, and we knew his presence and he never failed us or left us alone for a minute. That is true of the whole journey, and I do not think I have ever experienced anything quite like it before.
After the drive up from Livingstone we arrived in Lusaka about 1700, in the full flow of evening traffic of course! We had no idea where to go to stay, but felt a peace that the Lord had the right place and we need not worry. The 'Great North Road,' on which we needed to continue the next day, took us through the business district and there were some hotels, but none seemed right. We went slowly forward and in about half-an-hour found ourselves in the twilight on the north side of the city, so we drove on through the suburbs and out into the countryside. It was dark and Zambian signs are rarely lit, so we did begin to wonder if we had gone wrong. But about 30km (19 miles) into the countryside we did see a sign for Protea Hotels and Safari Lodge. For those who don't know, Protea are a South African chain with a hotel in most decent-sized towns, so we pulled in and drove along a dirt road for about 6km - wondering whether we had misunderstood the sign! But eventually we reached the place, and where I had expected a Protea Hotel and a Safari Lodge we found it was the Protea Hotel Safari Lodge. (Yes, the sign by the road did say 'and' but this is Africa!).
The manager on duty was quite happy to offer a room, but at a rate way beyond our budget. So we explained our circumstances and turned to go, but he said that he would give us a night at weekend rate and even did us a 'deal' on food that night. It's a lovely place and it would be great to go back for a special break some time, but the Lord was so gracious to give us such luxury. We slept well, and the next day left for Amano. We stopped in Kitwe for a SIM card for the phone and to fill the tank, and were with Phil and Valerie Grove for a rather late lunch at 1330.
We had help with our unpacking and are already beginning to settle in. This has been long enough - more next time, the Lord willing.
In the meantime, thank you so much for your prayers and kindness in every way. Oh, and by the way, some of you may recall that 'Amano' is a local word for 'wisdom.' In saying 'Amano at last,' I think the only actual wisdom I have arrived at is that the more we mistrust ourselves and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, the better things are!