ECUADOR — Our student camp proved to be a time of amazing spiritual revival for more than 200 young people this year. But it didn’t come without a cost.

I was traveling with a group of students to the camp about eight hours away. Just as we were stopping for lunch, a car appeared from nowhere and struck us broadside. This would typically be a simple matter of calling the insurance company and working out the details, but this was rural Ecuador. The rules are different there.

The one who struck us was the police chief’s best friend, and his uncle was his lawyer. Everything was suddenly our fault. I was to be arrested and my truck impounded. That was the reality we could see.

However, we couldn’t see the spiritual battle that was taking place. This was our enemy’s best attempt to thwart the revival that would take place at camp that week. But we had a mighty God on our side and many people praying for us.

From the very moment of the accident, God gave me the self-control to be calm, kind, and accommodating. My natural response would have been to argue and defend our rights, but the fruit of the Spirit took over.

The students who were with me watched as the tone of the situation began to change. God did amazing things that day.

He guided the accident to keep our truck from flipping and to keep it driveable. He helped my wife make the deposits in the bank to pay for the repair of the other vehicle. He released the other driver from the clinic without injury. He softened the heart of the police chief to come to a peaceful arrangement. He allowed us to continue on to camp and have one of the most powerful weeks of ministry I have ever been part of.

As we pulled into the camp at 9 p.m., 15 hours after we had begun our journey, one of the young ladies on the worship team said, “Today I learned more about what it means to live the Christian life than I have in the last five years put together.”