Have you ever had an experience where things just fell into place, but when you look back you realize how many different things had to happen a particular way for that experience to “fall” into place. Some people call it coincidence, but I don’t believe in coincidence–I believe in DIVINE CHOREOGRAPHY.
These experiences are like a choreographed scene or dance. Things have to happen a particular way for them to come together. Often these are answers to prayer, or just things that impact your life for the better. I believe that angels (who are often our family and friends who have passed on) are helping to choreograph these things in our lives. I had an experience like this recently that reminded me of how much God loves us and answers our prayers through Divine Choreography.
As you all know if you have been reading my blog, we started full-time RVing about one year ago. It has been a blast. One of the things we were hoping for with this lifestyle was to meet new people and make some lifelong friends. We wanted to be able to be a blessing in their lives and they in ours. So, we started praying that we would meet people whose lives we could bless and who could bless our lives.
The first piece of this divine choreography is that just as we started praying for this, we were camping near Ketchum, Idaho, in an incredible boondocking spot near the mouth of Murdoch Creek Canyon. I had gone out for my morning walk, but decided to extend it a little that morning which took me walking past one of the other RVs that was a few RVs down from us. The man who owned the RV, just happened to be outside with his dog, putting some things away in the compartment that was on the roadside of the RV (other side from their door) which is where I was walking. Normally I would say, “Hi”, to people and move on. However, this particular time, I felt that I should talk to him. So we started chatting. His wife was off doing her yoga workout for the morning so he had time to chat for a bit. I suddenly felt that I should invite them to come to our RV for dinner. He also wanted to come over and see our Pepwave set up we use for internet connection. He said he would discuss it with his wife and he would let us know when he came over to look at the Pepwave. I definitely gave them an out in case they didn’t want to but didn’t want to be rude, because after all, we were really complete strangers.
Peter came over later to look at the Pepwave and he said they would accept our invitation. So later that day, Peter and his wife, TJ, came over to dinner. We had a very pleasant time with them. The brought a fantastic Marionberry Pie they had picked up at the farmer’s market in Ketchum. It was fabulous. They knew that we were new to RV life, so they recommended that we join Escapees RV Club. They said it was a great way to meet people. We were both leaving the next day. I was hoping that maybe these would be those friends we had been praying for. We texted a little afterwards, but our paths went our separate ways.
They were there to help inspire us to join the Escapees. We thought about it for a few days and decided to join. You can’t expect God to do everything in answering your prayers. We must do our part, so we knew we needed to put ourselves in places where we could meet people. We decided to join the Xscapers group which is the working age RVers, for their annual bash in Lake Havasu, Arizona, in January. And that was the end of that. Nothing more really happened with Peter and TJ. We texted a little bit and I thought maybe we would reconnect with them at the bash in January.
Fast-forward to January. We have had a lot of fun traveling with family and by ourselves (blog posts to come about all of that). But we hadn’t made any connections really. So we go to the bash. Peter and TJ are not there. Hmmm… There are, however, over 600 other people. We should be able to make some connections there, right? Well, we really didn’t. We talked to a few people here and there. Nothing really clicked. The group that we did start to connect with was the Off-roading group. We went out on three rides with them. I went on two without Mike because he was working and he went on one with me. There were two couples in this group and some solo travelers that I felt we could maybe connect with, but the only time we really socialized with them was on the jeep trips. It was interesting because two of the Jeeping couples were parked right in front of us, and yet we did not make a social connection at that time. In fact we both felt fairly awkward and just didn’t really connect with anyone at the other events. We’re not really social people. So that was probably our fault for not reaching out.
So, we left the bash feeling a bit disappointed, but we kept praying. We knew our prayers would be answered at some point if it was important that it be answered now. God’s timing isn’t always our timing.
We went down to Quartzsite and connected with Mike’s parents and their friends for the week of the Quartzsite RV show. We stayed at the La Posa South Long-Term Visitor Area and joined the Monaco Circle. Another potential opportunity to connect with people. We made some nice acquaintances and have texted a bit with them since, but nothing really came of that either–yet.
Then the divine choreography happened. I decided that I wanted some guacamole to go with our dinner, so, I headed in search of avocados. I went to two stores that I thought were the only grocery stores in town thanks to Google listing them for me and not the actual grocery stores (that was interesting in and of itself). I didn’t find any avocados. I remembered that at the Flea Market near the RV show they had a discount grocery tent. So I went there in search of an avocado. I’m walking purposefully to the tent when I hear, “oh, hello”. It was Flo Wende and Lance Wende. They were one of the couples we met on the off-road trips at the bash. We chatted for a bit. Flo said they had an awesome campsite with great signal just outside of the Kofa National Wildlife Refuge. She showed me pictures. I told her we were thinking of heading that way because Mike needed some signal to get some work down. The signal was terrible in Quartzsite with the thousands of people overwhelming the towers. Flo said they had blazing fast connection where they were. She said she would send me a pin and we exchanged contact info. They also told me about the real grocery store where I could get avocadoes.
First, why was I so obsessed with having guacamole that I would go into town to pick up avocados only? I just happen to be in the right place at the right time to run into Flo and Lance, because I just happen to remember there was a grocery tent. The timing had to be perfect for our paths to cross again. I didn’t even have their contact info before that.
Well this turned out to be the divine choreography to answer our prayer. Flo and Lance had invited several other couples to be with them there. We had a few weeks of amazing fun. We had a Super Bowl party, Jeep trips and evening fire conversation. It was so great!! We made friends with four couples who were camped there. To our surprise on our first Jeep trip, the other couple from our off-roading trips at the Bash came along. They were in Yuma and Flo had let them know about it and they came. So we reconnected with Amy and Joel.
Those three weeks were full of activities with these friends and conversations. It was fantastic. It was what I had imagined full-time RV life could be like. It was a bit of Heaven. They are such good people. We were even able to serve them by picking up groceries for them when we went into town and watching their RVs when they had to be away. It was sad when each member of this fun group had to leave. We were actually the last to leave that area, so we bid farewell to each of them. I look forward to connecting with them again in the future.
Due to the divine choreography, we now have a circle of friends that we will continue to be blessed to associate with. We all went our separate ways, but we have plans to reconnect with several of them in future. Flo and Lance and Amy and Joel will be joining us for an overnight Jeep adventure to Whitmore Canyon and we are talking seriously about traveling to Mexico next winter with Mike and Klare and maybe some others from the group and to Alaska as well in 2023 with Mike and Klare. We are also planning to connect up with Karen and Jeff at some point in the future. I’m so happy to have connected with these friends. I can’t wait to make more connections with them in the future.
Interestingly, Flo & Lance and Karen & Jeff were the two couples that were parked right in front of us at the bash. And while we talked a little bit with them, we never really connected. As I have reflected on this, I believe that God was trying to answer our prayers when he placed us near them. We did not do our part and did not socialize as much as we should have. Even though we made a mistake, God gave us a second chance to connect with these fine people. We already love these people. He is so kind and merciful to us, even when we don’t do our part. I look forward to seeing what other friends Heaven may bless us to meet in the future. Hopefully we will do our part better in future. I am just so grateful for second chances and for prayers being answered through DIVINE CHOREOGRAPHY.