Tom's Boots on the Ground

It was a struggle just to commit to painting a mural for the new addition to the Rio Coco Café in downtown Vero Beach, Florida. I had never done a mural in a public space before. But God wanted me to do it. Who was I to contend with God? The One who paints sunrises and sunsets said He would help.

When the guys came in and began laying down the floor, it was time for me to finish up. That too was the Lord, because otherwise I probably would have fudged around till I ruined it. I signed my initials in the lower right-hand corner and we packed our bags for Philadelphia, where our grandson, Thomas Kli Keogh was born on Sunday, September 20th. The Café officially opened on the 21st. 

At 6:20 I received an updated notification saying flight 434 was still on for the 26th. At eight o’clock, however, Ana Benjamín came over. “Did you hear?” She said. “All the flights out of Nicaragua have been cancelled. It was on Channel Ten. They’re closing the border.”

“We don’t have a TV,” Nutie said.

I logged onto the Spirit website. The Thursday flight was indeed cancelled. So was the Wednesday flight. The one scheduled to leave Managua this very night would be the last one out. We needed to get to Managua ASAP.

Two days after Bridge to Grace left, Chilean Juan Carlos Letelier and his team of Canadian Gideons called Shareword Global came in, accompanied by a journalist from the television network CBN.

I came across Renso Rivas in Sih. He was escaping from his employer in Honduras, a drug trafficker nicknamed José Tigre, who had allegedly tried to kill him. He looked tired and carried nothing but the clothes on his back. It had rained. We spent an evening together, talking and watching the Jesus film.