Some of you have been following my journey on social media over the past few months as I raised funds for a mission trip with Overseas Missions to minister in Ukraine this past September. Our initial plan was to help train a local church in how to operate in spiritual gifts, to visit and minister to refugees, and whatever other doors Holy Spirit opened up to us. Our actual trip differed some from the original plan, as it always does, but I believe we accomplished much that God wanted us to and that we deposited things in that nation that will bear lasting fruit. However, to begin doing any of that, we first had to actually get to Ukraine. Because of the Russia-Ukraine war, no one can fly directly into the country, so our team had to meet up in Bucharest, Romania, rent two vans, and drive there. So, we loaded up the vans, as one of the two drivers I accidentally forgot a team member at the hotel (it was only for a few minutes and I never made it out of the parking lot so it’s not as bad as it could have been), we loaded up the vans with all of the team members, and set out for Ukraine.
The drive through Romania was 3-4 hours long, and we were heading to a ferry that would take us across the Danube River and to the Ukranian border. I forget the reason, but at one point Tyler, the leader and other driver, had me re-route our directions to avoid the ferry. We had gotten split up, which didn’t really matter because we were going to the same place anyway, and in the end his van ended up at the ferry anyway. My van, however, did not. Not knowing they ended up on a different route at that point, I followed wherever the GPS took me, which landed me at the border of Romania and Moldova. For a brief geography lesson, Moldova is completely surrounded by Romania on the west and south and by Ukraine on the north, east, and south. Going through Moldova is one method of going to Ukraine. Except we were going to Izmail, a city south of Moldova that is reachable by crossing into Ukraine directly. None of which I knew at the time. All I knew is that I was at the border of the wrong nation, and where I had stopped, it was too late to turn around. Oops.
I forget if I called Tyler or if we messaged because I can’t find the message thread, but when he found out our van was at the border of Moldova his advice was basically “stay safe.” Because what I didn’t know at the time was that in the weeks leading up to the trip, God had given a dream to a friend who wasn’t able to join us. In that dream, God expressly instructed us to avoid the Moldovan border. And because our initial route avoided Moldova entirely (in keeping with the divine instructions) and I had re-mapped a new route, Tyler forgot about it . . . right until I told him that we were at their border. So now I’m not only at a border of a nation I didn’t intend to be at, but I discover after the fact that God had given us explicit instructions not to go that way. Double oops.
Now, this may sound like a horrible turn of events, but I actually found it pretty funny at the time, and I still do. It is just so incredibly human of us to have God give us knowledge and instruction that surpasses human wisdom and yet for us to just bumble along and mess it all up anyway. And because God is good and He loves us, He makes a way for us anyway. So in spite of finding out that I had bungled things up quite nicely, I wasn’t worried. In fact, right when I pulled up to the Moldovan border, God gave me a prophetic word in the form of the license plate in front of me to tell me what His plan was. I forget the whole plate, and the letters didn’t matter, but the plate had exactly three numbers, and they were 333. Usually when I see three 3’s it is in reference to Jeremiah 33:3 which says, “Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know.” In other words, even though I didn’t know the details of the situation up-front, God was reassuring me that He was going to tell me whatever I needed to know with wisdom that surpassed my existing knowledge. And with that, I proceeded to drive forward into the border crossing.
Other than passports, one of the first things the border crossing guard asked me for was an International Drivers License (IDL)—which I did not have. And had I been paying better attention the language of the Holy Spirit leading up to the trip I would have had one because my mom had actually mentioned it to me days before we left the USA. But Tyler had done a bunch of research online and the general consensus was that no one ever asked for one, so he didn’t bother mentioning it or suggesting I get one. Which again was funny because it was one of the first things they asked for at the border crossing I wasn’t supposed to be at.
Once the man found out that neither I nor anyone else in the van had one, he became rather agitated. He kept saying things like “we are going to have to find you another driver.” At which point in time I made the comment “If we don’t have the right license, I can simply turn around and not enter your nation, and that will solve that problem.” Realistically, I could just backtrack, take the ferry the other van was going to use, and skip Moldova. He didn’t like that answer because he replied, “Then you would still be driving in Romania without one.” I didn’t understand why he said that at first, but the second time we replayed a similar conversation I realized what was going on. European border crossings are a bit different than North American ones. In North America the nation you are leaving generally doesn’t care that you are leaving. The only nation who cares is the one you are attempting to enter. This is not how Europe works, or at least the part of Europe we were in. I wasn’t talking to a Moldovan. I was talking to a Romanian border guard, who was getting more upset every time I suggested we turn around and keep driving through Romania without an IDL. Oops again.
He ended up leaving us and checking on some cars behind us, at which point he instructed the driver of one of those cars to come up to our van and show me his IDL paperwork, which that man kindly did, and briefly explained a little to me about international driving laws and agreements between the US and other nations in that regard. Shortly thereafter this Romanian border guard returned to the van, made some comment to me about me being in the military, that I had better have the correct paperwork on my return trip, then let us pass through. Now we were heading to the Moldovan part of the border crossing to actually enter Moldova. (I later discovered that the IDL is a powerful tool of bureaucracy that has exactly zero value for driving ability and it simply mimics a small portion of your license of your existing nation in multiple languages. It can be acquired in under ten minutes online. And as they’re basically just copying your existing license info from your home nation as the template for it, it is pointless. A lot of drama over nothing.)
That segment of the check-through was slightly easier because they didn’t ask me for an IDL, and while they didn’t speaking English, both the Moldovan border guard and I spoke Spanish, so we were able to talk with our mutual second-language to get us through the checkpoint. During that time I also spoke to the man who had come up to the van earlier. His name was John and and as we talked I found out he was in a position of significant responsibility over a US military garrison somewhere in Germany (It took me over a week to realize that a combination of John being present and me having my passport photo be of me in a camouflage shirt must have given that border guard the impression that I was military, because nothing about the passengers or contents of our van screamed “military”). John was visiting Ukraine because his wife is Ukrainian and they had not been back in the country for a while. He also explained that this border crossing was the worst one to use to enter Ukraine and that they always avoid it—but that they had to go this way because this was the only border anywhere close to where they were going that had a veterinarian there. Because they had brought their dog with them on that trip they needed a vet to review their dog’s paperwork to have him be permitted through. And this is where some of that wisdom-beyond-knowledge that God was going to provide us came in. Before we left that checkpoint, John asked me if we had a “vignette”. Having no idea what he was talking about, I said as much. He explained that it was basically a toll or road tax that we were required to pay, and that Moldova would expect us to have it at the next border crossing. Which at that moment, I discovered the next border crossing was only one kilometer away. Yes, we were crossing at the very bottom tip of Moldova and were going to spend a single kilometer of distance in this nation. On the other end of that short road was another Moldovan border crossing and then a Ukrainian one where we would get to do this process all over again. Fortunately, because God placed John in our path, first so the Romanian would believe I was military, and second so we could buy this “vignette” (a 4-euro-equivalent road tax) before arriving at the next border, we were not held up extra at the border as a result.
I stopped at the gas station John recommended, bought the vignette, and then we went to the next border crossing just down the street. Everyone in line was stopped at that one for almost two hours because a group of Orthodox and/or Hasidic Jews who were making some kind of pilgrimage had a bunch of drugs with them and it held up the line, but that gave me more time to talk to John and see if there was anything else we needed to know so we could cross borders without further hassle. There wasn’t. We did not see John or his wife again and made it through the rest of the border crossings without much additional hassle, but his presence at the first border and the insight he gave us into the whole vignette-acquiring process took care of the major issues we were facing at that border crossing, and eventually we were driving into Ukraine and heading to the Green Hall Hotel in Izmail where we stayed for the following week.
There are multiple potential takeaways from this story, such as “heed prophetic warnings,” but the one that stuck with me was to simply trust God to make a way when we need a path opened before us. He told me up-front with the license plate message that He was going to tell me things I didn’t know, so I didn’t really see a reason to get into fear over the border crossing. Was I at perfect peace the entire time? No. But was I amused and generally enjoying the adventure? Yes. Even while we were in the middle of it all, I recognized those were the kind of events that make for a good story and a great memory. I decided to have fun with it all and just see what unfolded before us. And as I did so, God came through with everything He said He was going to provide for us.
