By Dr. Ted Baehr
I will go before you and will level the mountains; I will break down gates of bronze and cut through bars of iron.
– Isaiah 45:2
How do you go where no one was supposed to go before?
In 1976, the United States of America Bicentennial Year, I was preparing to produce a TV mini-series with Gene Roddenberry of “Star Trek” fame. To do so, my wife Lili and I traveled to the Yucatán Mexico to look at major archeological sites with one of the board members of the major Mexico City History Museum. While there, to complete the research for ABC, we needed to go to Guatemala to visit the ruins of the ancient Mayan city of Tikal. So, we rented a Volkswagen and drove hours from Mérida to the Mexican-Belize border, arriving at the border on a Sunday at lunch time.
The border guards said that the car was not approved by the rental agreement to cross the border. The only way we could cross was to find the commanding officer in the city of over several hundred thousand people at Sunday lunch and get a signed permission. They didn’t know where the commander lived, and they probably just wanted a bribe. So, rather than do anything illegal, I prayed that we could find the commander.
We drove straight toward the port and in the middle of the town God said, “Turn left up a hill.” After a few streets, God led me to turn right and stop by a nice row house. I walked up the steps, knocked on the door, found the commander, and got the paper signed.
I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you with my eye upon you.
-Psalm 32:8
Do not enter …
The roads in Belize and Guatemala were full of gigantic potholes that almost swallowed the rented Volkswagen.
We made it to Tikal late in the evening, climbed over the “do not enter” closed gates and saw the ancient ruins in the diminished light of dusk and night with jaguars and hundreds of chattering monkeys surrounding us while the monuments sang as the cold air shrank the stones ever so slightly.
1776 All Over Again
On the way back from Tikal to Mexico, we got to the Guatemala-Belize border. Guatemala considers Belize to be another province of Guatemala, even though Belize has been its own country for years. The Americans provide aid to the Guatemalans, and the British provide aid to Belize. So, here we were in Bicentennial 1976 with Guatemala lining up American tanks on the border facing the Belize army’s British tanks.
After extensive haggling with the border guards, we get across the border to a tiny Mayan Indian village with one closed gas station. The car has been shaken to pieces by driving at high speeds across the potholes in Belize and Guatemala. When I looked under the VW, I found out that all but one of the bolts holding the transmission onto the car had shaken loose.
Where can I get the car fixed to rush back to Merida in Mexico to fly back to New York City? I pray. A Mayan man walks by and directs us to a wonderful little native man living by a stream in a tiny hut.
Miraculously, he looks at the car and says that he’ll fix it. While we sit by the stream drinking his coffee, he finds parts that would be impossible to find anywhere else, fixes the car and then says he won’t take any money for it. I ask him how he did that, and he said that in the Korean War he had been in the American Navy as a mechanic.
God’s grace put him there at such a time as this.
When we made it back to Mérida, Mexico, as the rental car company agent was checking out the car the rear light fell off, bringing laughter and joy at God’s provision and protection.
We made the plane. God always provides, even for a television production.
For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.
-Jeremiah 29:11
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