God's Help

Friday - May 21
Continuing on with the Epperson Amazing Race. And speaking of amazing,
isn't it amazing how God takes care of us no matter what the
situation! But, back to that in a little bit.

Yesterday, we had another beautiful, sunny day. I told Lonnie that I
wanted to ditch France, so that we really can go to Sopot and check out
the Bible school. We took Nimes and Orange off of the schedule and were
supposed to go to Monaco, then on to Genoa. It should have been a
somewhat straight shot. But my husband has this thing about mountains
and roads. If there is a narrow road up the side of a mountain, you can
be assured that he will find it. Yesterday he found not only one, but
many. Some with sheer cliffs up and down on either side, and some
through a narrow gorge. The views were breath-taking, literally. They
reminded me of the verse in the Bible (and I can't remember where it is)
that says that people will be able to know God just by looking at the
works of His hands, or creation. I don't have a concordance with me,so
someone help me out here!

We finally found our way into Monaco and Monte Carlo. What a place!
The view was fantastic. Lonnie recently saw the movie, "Iron Man 2"
and was trying to see where the race took place but there was nowhere
level enough except for a short area around the Casino. We did not
stop, but only drove through (which took quite a while), because there
were people and cars everywhere!!!! I recommend taking the train into
the city center if you ever want to go there.

By the time that we made it through Monaco, it was starting to get
late. In Europe, you need to find your hotel room by around 5 or 6PM,
or it becomes almost impossible. We drove and drove, checking out towns
in the area. We knew that we could not make it to Genoa, but didn't
know where to go. Finally, around 10:30PM, with no options in sight, I
prayed for God to show us a place to stay, because we obviously couldn't
find one on our own. He answered almost immediately with a hotel that
had car parking! However, the parking as it usually is was extremely
narrow and after some time Lonnie was able to park the car with barely
enough room to get out of the car. I was so thankful for the room! I
didn't care where it was, and thanked God for showing it to us. We had
driven down a narrow street with buildings on each side of us, so we had
no idea where we were. When we woke up this morning, we were greeted
with a balcony overlooking the Mediterranean Sea with the most beautiful
view ever!!! How awesome is that! Thank you, God, for taking care of
our needs way better than we ever could!!! We could not have picked out
a better view if we had planned it!

Now we are once again running late. But, we have already booked a room
in Florence, Italy, at the hotel that we normally stay at. We will be
driving through Collodi (Pinocchio's home), then on to Florence. I
haven't decided where whether to go into Florence or not. There are so
many places that I love, but I also would like to see new places . .
.decisions, decisions!!!