When Germán asked my father for his blessing, he said, in essence :I want to marry your daughter...and take her two-thirds of the way around the world!
Back then, Australia was trying to boost immigration, so the government offered charter flights for only $100, on the condition that the contractee do two things once he/she arrived in the country: take an 8-week intensive English course (for those who needed it), and remain in the country for at least two years. (So if you decided to leave before your two years were up, you had to pay the Australian government back what your ticket would have cost commercially - about $1000.)
This idea appealed to Germán's adventurousness. By the time we met, he had already done most of the paperwork...but as a single man. He'd have to redo parts of it in order to go to Australia as a married man....but, of course, he had to actually be married! He was already going to miss the fall flight, but we figured we could make the January flight if we stepped up our plans.. So there you have the reason our engagement wasn't of a "normal" length.
What was going through our minds? Well, speaking for myself...I was somehow completely sure that Germán was the man I should marry. My parents, along with Germán and myself, agreed on a day to fast, and we all felt God's peace. ( Let me say that, in all our almost 40 years of marriage, I have never thought, "I married the wrong man" or "I shouldn't have married him", something which I have heard other women say when they have problems. I just figured that, if there are problems, you fix them! I think that being the right person in a marriage is as important as or even more important than marrying the "right person". )
We were married in September (1973). After the ceremony, and an informal but fun reception outside, we got our luggage and got into the car, and...it wouldn't go! Germán, who, among other things, is a trained auto mechanic, started wondering what could be wrong with the engine...and what a time for it to happen! Leaving on our honeymoon and the car wouldn't go! When he stepped out of the car to have a look, he realized what had happened. My brother, with some cohorts, had raised the car (a little compact Fiat) up on cement blocks, so the tires weren't touching the ground!
In January (1974), we got on the bus to Lima, Peru (from where the charter flight to Australia was leaving).
Even in this, we had God's merciful protection, although we didn't find out about it til later. There were only 2 buses a week to Lima, and we took the Tuesday one, in order to be in Lima in time. Once we arrived in Lima, we got a message relayed to us from Quito saying that the flight was delayed a few days. Our first thought was "we could have waited and taken the Thursday bus, and had a couple more days with friends and family."
Once we had been in Australia for about a month (back then mail took a lot longer than it does now, and "e-mail" wasn't even in the English vocabulary), we got a letter from my mom telling us that this same Thursday bus had crashed, and several people were killed. IF we had received the message about the delay in the flight while we were still in Quito, we would have taken that bus and been on it when the accident occurred. Our new adventure was starting out with clear proof of our Lord's Hand, as He stopped the message from getting to us in time to change our plans.
We lived in Australia for five years, with many lessons learned, many opportunities to see God work, and many times when we saw His provision and protection...especially with our rambunctious little "kangaroo"! I'll tell you about some of our "narrow escapes" next time. See you then!
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