Found a place to stay during travels
Back in 1972, when my future wife and I had both finished our university degree courses, we went hitch-hiking and youth-hostelling for a couple of weeks through France, Switzerland and Italy. We had booked our flights, the hostels at either end of our journeying, and return coach tickets in the UK to Gatwick Airport. No credit cards, just £55 between us! The trip was full of God’s amazing provision for what was a quite unknown adventure – neither of us had been outside the UK before, or flown anywhere.
The most memorable answer to prayer was in Bellinzona, where we had arrived quite late in the evening, to find the Youth Hostel closed. Having prayed, we knew God must have somewhere for us to stay, and managed to communicate our accommodation dilemma to a local policeman. He indicated a direction to walk in where we might find help – we had no idea what. As we walked in the dark down the particular street we thought he had mentioned, a door opened in a large property, a man walked down the entrance path to the gate as we passed, and without us saying anything, asked if he could help us. It turned out that this was some sort of monastic community, and we had a free overnight stay and breakfast! That whole day had been a wonderful experience, but this capped it off!
We eventually arrived back at Gatwick with fifty pence to spare!