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.