Is this the road to Dubrovnik?

(Written by Andrew, who contributes once annually to the Blog)
That was the theme of the first part of the trip Ieva and I made to connect with Kim in sunny Dubrovnik, Croatia (Hrvatska in Croatian). After getting the two of us packed, fed, on the bus to Vilnius, taxi to the airport, back to town for dinner, back to the airport by taxi, 5 hours of sleep in a room with no shower, 6am flight to Prague, 7 hour layover and flight to Zagreb, at 2:30pm we were into our rental car and on the road to Dubrovnik for our anticipated 7.5 hour drive. Since the car came with the free upgrade of a GPS system, the question we continually asked our new friend "GPS", was "Is this road to Dubrovnik?"

I have limited experience with GPS navigational systems and had not intended to use one until I believe (never confirmed) that the rental company gave it to us to keep us happy when our Fiat Punto that we reserved online (car with some room) turned into a Fiat Panda (car with room for Ieva, a Ieva sized friend and a bag of pretzels).

Croatia is shaped like a backwards comma and the Zagreb airport is somewhere at the top of the comma with Dubrovnik at the extreme south end. Our goal was to head to the A1 motorway that spans most of Croatia's long and skinny western coast. I entered a Dubrovnik address into our electronic friend and it immediately told me to drive straight and then turn left in 210 meters. I thought, "wow, how precise" and started off.
My instincts told me that I would need to drive west for a while before we linked up with the motorway and even though we spent considerable time driving southeast, I thought that it must be setting me up to hit the motorway through a more direct, back road route rather then a major highway.

2.5 hours later and nearly at the border of Bosnia I resigned myself to the fact that the automatic settings were set to take me the absolute most direct route and this was through Bosnia. So I began the task of figuring out where I was, where I wanted to be and how to get there. I soon realized that my friend GPS wasn't going to be much help after it sent me two miles down a dirt road that ended in a large mud quarry with a burned out old steam shovel and a bunch of broken down farm equipment that had been run off the road. I have to say at that point that I was less then confident in my new friend's abilities. Trying to get your microscopic rental car down a wet dirt road with your wet diapered two year old screaming, "Ieva want to get on Dada" isn't fun in rural America but in rural Croatia where the guide books say, "if you see signs that say "land mines, stay on the path", they mean, stay on the path!", its more then a little disconcerting. Needless to say, the atlas worked out better for me the next few turns and finally I got to the freeway where I was able to drive unimpeded for several hours on beautiful three lane motorways with little traffic, lots of gas stations and places to stop.

I mistakenly went back to the GPS which was proving more reliable until we encountered the one thing that GPS can't handle, road closures. Apparently a bridge was being repaired and the resulting detour was more then it could take. As the hour became later (11:30pm) and the detour became longer I again began to lose faith in "GPS". Croatia doesn't identify with my need for "affirmation signs", signs that aren't necessarily at a major turn or intersection but that "affirm" that you are indeed still on the right path (I think that the 150 km detour had three signs saying "Dubrovnik"). After the GPS unit sent me again on a wild goose chase into an abandoned gravel parking lot of a factory in what could have been Kazakhstan, I reversed direction, pulled up to the road I had just left and offered up a desperate prayer. It was 12.00am, the "system" had been telling me that I was 1.5 hours away for 1.5 hours and my cell phone was out of network coverage. I'd been driving for 9 hours with a two year old (who other then 5 minutes of crying was an angel and I was so proud) mostly in the dark on country roads in the mountains somewhere between the Adriatic and the Black Sea and I was at the end of my rope.
No sooner had the "God, just get me to Dubrovnik" exited my lips when a car flashed by with a license place that started with DU. I thought, "could that stand for Dubrovnik", didn't wait to find out and tore after the car. Needless to say, the car took me right to the outskirts of the city, 150 km away and I was able to pick up Kim at her hotel and get to our flat.

I have to say that never in my life has God answered a prayer so fast. I don't tend to get to the end of my rope very easily so perhaps it was the absolute desperate thoughts of spending the night in this little car in the middle of nowhere with my sleeping daughter that prompted the rapid response but I couldn't have even snapped my fingers before the answer to my dilemma was in front of me. Its amazing how when we get to the end of ourselves there's a lot of God left to cling to.

At 1:30am after 11 hours of driving when we finally settled into our flat, owned by a strange but nice man named Mirko, we were greeted by the reason we came, the view of the old city and its ancient harbor was magnificent and was right out our bedroom window. While I would have gladly traded the 11 hour drive for the 1 hour flight that Kim had taken, the experience, the time with Ieva even in frustration and humility was worth it as I silently praised God for his provision and faithfulness to his children, even the ones who don't always think that we need it.