A lot of crazy things have happened this week. To sum up, the best part of our week was getting stuck in the mud. A lot of random things just seemed to be piling up and to be honest I was pretty frustrated by the weekend. I was doing my Bible study this morning…I’m working through Romans and one of the verses I studied today was Romans 1:17, which cross-referenced Hebrews 10:38-39 which says:
“But My righteous one shall live by faith; and if he shrinks back, My soul has no pleasure in him. But we are not of those who shrink back to destruction, but of those who have faith to the preserving of the soul.” Yikes. The phrase "shrink back" made me cringe a little. He reminded me that part of being one of His is walking by faith and not certainty and that when opposition comes, that’s our opportunity to cling to Him and face it head-on.
Sunday, July 18, 2010
Evicted
The day after we got stuck in the mud on the other road, we decided to take our normal road out to Yosemite. Well, part of that road was completely under water also so we off-roaded again…being even more cautious this time. We found a part where the stream of water narrowed out, built a little makeshift bridge out of sticks and drove right across. When we got to Yosemite, we went to visit our family and soon found out that we were going to have to move out of our hut and into a different one. Now I know it’s just a mud-hut, but it was OUR mud-hut and it had become home. There are very few things in our lives that are consistent and that hut was one of those things. Needless to say we were pretty sad, and feeling kind of homeless, but we needed to make sure our family didn’t know that so we kept smiling and said it was okay. H-Mama was actually pretty riled up that her children were being evicted. Actually everyone, including the mayor, was pretty riled up except for the woman evicting us. Our hut actually belongs to one of the women in the compound who has kind of been known to start trouble before. She decided that she needed it for her daughter-in-law who had been staying with her…which is totally fine and it’s her hut to do with what she needs. Our new hut is not nearly as nice and it doesn’t have its own bathroom hole, but it DOES have some graffiti on the front door which is, of course, a plus. It may or may not say “Ghetto Dragon.”
The Psalm I was supposed to read that night was chapter 23. Following other amazing promises and bits of truth, the chapter finishes with, “And I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”
The Psalm I was supposed to read that night was chapter 23. Following other amazing promises and bits of truth, the chapter finishes with, “And I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”
Mud
Since it’s been raining more and more the roads are becoming worse and worse since they’re just made of sand and dirt. We decided that we needed to have some alternative routes in our back pocket. So, Sarah and I went out looking for different routes to our village (Yosemite) the other day. We got out the GPS and headed down one of the roads that we knew from traveling to the Ram Village, veering off onto different trails that seemed to be leading to Yosemite. When we’d see a part of the road that seemed iffy, we’d get out of the truck and go check it out. We totally felt like trailblazers and it was really kind of a nice adrenaline rush tearing through the desert in search of new things. Well, we got to this one part of the trail that was underwater, so we got out and went poking around to the side to see if anything looked crossable. We decided to try veering off to the left, cutting it through some thorn trees and back onto the road where it was back above water. So off we went…and soon we stopped. Turns out mud is super tricky. We got out to survey the damage and the two front tires were stuck in the mud…the left one almost completely buried.
We stared at the mess for a while and decided that we needed to dig out the tire and throw some sticks down behind it and try to back out. We started out just bent over, shoveling mud out with our hands, but it soon got low enough that both of us were down on all fours, legs sinking in, clearing as much mud out from under the truck as we could (and we both had on some of our nicer outfits). We had just gotten a pretty good area cleared and had begun putting sticks down when an African man walked up…I’ll call him Saul. He wanted to know where we were going and where we were headed. When we told him, he of course thought we were crazy for trying to take the mobile (pronounced mobilly) on that road. Well, SOMEhow, even though a very, very, very small percentage of them have vehicles, African are absolute geniuses when it comes to getting them unstuck…and they also love helping out the white girls…double bonus. Saul told us to dig out more mud and that we needed more sticks and rocks. Then he jumped right in to help us; he dug some, he walked around tearing branches off of trees, he went out in search of rocks (we were in a fairly rockless area). So we tried again and it didn’t work, but almost…the truck just needed to be lifted so we could get sticks to go UNDER the front left tire. So we jacked it up, shoved some sticks under there, and backed right on out…a mere 2 hours after getting stuck. Saul celebrated by stuffing a hollowed-out bone with what I will call “tobacco” and smoking it.
It was an awesome day. We had a lot of fun, but God showed Himself to us in some really big ways that day. First of all…there was absolutely NO reason for Saul to be out where our truck was. He wasn’t traveling anywhere, he wasn’t a shepherd out there with his flock, and his village was a pretty good distance from where we were. We really think that he saw us driving by his hut and immediately came looking for us, knowing that we’d get stuck. Also, when I thought that we should try jacking the truck up, I kind of gave up on the idea because how in the world would we jack the truck up without the jack just going straight down into the mud. In my mind I imagined what we would need to be able to use the jack…a fairly wide, really thick block of wood. But all that was out there was thorn bush branches. When I went to the back of the truck to fold the seat down and grab the jack, the first thing I laid eyes on was the very block of wood I had just imagined in my head. I’m sure it’s always been there, but I probably wouldn’t have noticed it if I hadn’t already seen it in my mind. And Sarah had a similar experience as well.
We headed back to G-Vegas incredulous at the fact that we had still had a really good day. As we began sharing some of our personal experiences with each other, it became even clearer that God had been the one helping us the entire time. I can’t even put into words everything that He did for us that day and how thankful Sarah and I both were. He never promised that we wouldn’t get stuck in the mud, but He does promise that He won’t leave us when we do. Sounds good to me.
We stared at the mess for a while and decided that we needed to dig out the tire and throw some sticks down behind it and try to back out. We started out just bent over, shoveling mud out with our hands, but it soon got low enough that both of us were down on all fours, legs sinking in, clearing as much mud out from under the truck as we could (and we both had on some of our nicer outfits). We had just gotten a pretty good area cleared and had begun putting sticks down when an African man walked up…I’ll call him Saul. He wanted to know where we were going and where we were headed. When we told him, he of course thought we were crazy for trying to take the mobile (pronounced mobilly) on that road. Well, SOMEhow, even though a very, very, very small percentage of them have vehicles, African are absolute geniuses when it comes to getting them unstuck…and they also love helping out the white girls…double bonus. Saul told us to dig out more mud and that we needed more sticks and rocks. Then he jumped right in to help us; he dug some, he walked around tearing branches off of trees, he went out in search of rocks (we were in a fairly rockless area). So we tried again and it didn’t work, but almost…the truck just needed to be lifted so we could get sticks to go UNDER the front left tire. So we jacked it up, shoved some sticks under there, and backed right on out…a mere 2 hours after getting stuck. Saul celebrated by stuffing a hollowed-out bone with what I will call “tobacco” and smoking it.
It was an awesome day. We had a lot of fun, but God showed Himself to us in some really big ways that day. First of all…there was absolutely NO reason for Saul to be out where our truck was. He wasn’t traveling anywhere, he wasn’t a shepherd out there with his flock, and his village was a pretty good distance from where we were. We really think that he saw us driving by his hut and immediately came looking for us, knowing that we’d get stuck. Also, when I thought that we should try jacking the truck up, I kind of gave up on the idea because how in the world would we jack the truck up without the jack just going straight down into the mud. In my mind I imagined what we would need to be able to use the jack…a fairly wide, really thick block of wood. But all that was out there was thorn bush branches. When I went to the back of the truck to fold the seat down and grab the jack, the first thing I laid eyes on was the very block of wood I had just imagined in my head. I’m sure it’s always been there, but I probably wouldn’t have noticed it if I hadn’t already seen it in my mind. And Sarah had a similar experience as well.
We headed back to G-Vegas incredulous at the fact that we had still had a really good day. As we began sharing some of our personal experiences with each other, it became even clearer that God had been the one helping us the entire time. I can’t even put into words everything that He did for us that day and how thankful Sarah and I both were. He never promised that we wouldn’t get stuck in the mud, but He does promise that He won’t leave us when we do. Sounds good to me.
Sunday, July 4, 2010
Three things you should know about me:
1) I love a good injury, BUT
2) I'm terrified of something bad happening to my teeth...especially while I'm here, and
3) This whole "sleeping in a tent" thing is totally new to me.
A couple of weeks ago when we were out in the village it got pretty windy one night. I was laying in my tent, enjoying the breeze and trying to fall asleep when a huge gust of wind came through. It lifted my tent up and started to blow over so I reached my hand up and hit the side to push it back down. That's when my 6 lb. Maglight came plummeting from the gear loft 3 feet above my head and nailed me in the mouth.
I sat up and held my hands up to my mouth and they immediately pooled with blood. It hit me so hard that everything was kind of numb. I really thought my front left tooth had been knocked out! I was looking for it because I couldn't tell if it was still in there or not. It was crazy! Sarah climbed in my tent, looked at my face, assured me that my tooth was still there, and got me some toilet paper for all the blood. It was our first night out for the week so some of our water bottles were still frozen and she made me hold one to my face. My upper lip immediately looked like I had put a marble inside it. And the inside was gushing blood.
We took these pictures the next day. My gum ended up turning black and a chunk of it came off...which renewed the fear of my tooth falling out...it never did. And for the next day or two my top lip got so big it was hard to talk and eat...but pretty funny to look at.
And I don't put my flashlight in the gear loft anymore.
I have (finally) posted some other pictures on Facebook. They load much quicker on there than here, but we still don't have good enough internet in the desert to post pics from there. Thanks for keeping up with my adventures and praying for me!
2) I'm terrified of something bad happening to my teeth...especially while I'm here, and
3) This whole "sleeping in a tent" thing is totally new to me.
A couple of weeks ago when we were out in the village it got pretty windy one night. I was laying in my tent, enjoying the breeze and trying to fall asleep when a huge gust of wind came through. It lifted my tent up and started to blow over so I reached my hand up and hit the side to push it back down. That's when my 6 lb. Maglight came plummeting from the gear loft 3 feet above my head and nailed me in the mouth.
I sat up and held my hands up to my mouth and they immediately pooled with blood. It hit me so hard that everything was kind of numb. I really thought my front left tooth had been knocked out! I was looking for it because I couldn't tell if it was still in there or not. It was crazy! Sarah climbed in my tent, looked at my face, assured me that my tooth was still there, and got me some toilet paper for all the blood. It was our first night out for the week so some of our water bottles were still frozen and she made me hold one to my face. My upper lip immediately looked like I had put a marble inside it. And the inside was gushing blood.
We took these pictures the next day. My gum ended up turning black and a chunk of it came off...which renewed the fear of my tooth falling out...it never did. And for the next day or two my top lip got so big it was hard to talk and eat...but pretty funny to look at.
And I don't put my flashlight in the gear loft anymore.
I have (finally) posted some other pictures on Facebook. They load much quicker on there than here, but we still don't have good enough internet in the desert to post pics from there. Thanks for keeping up with my adventures and praying for me!
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