This morning I awoke at the hour of 6:30am…again. Between the sunrise and the bird sounds, I can’t help but get up at that hour, even on my day off. Being in the middle of the jungle limits what we can do on our off days. So I braved the light drizzle to the cooksite to grab a cup of hot water for coffee watch the rain. My cup was never designed for heat and this was the last straw. With a subtle *criiiickk* the side split and the coffee began to leak out. Desperate times call for desperate measures, so I grabbed a plastic water bottle that was broken in half, and poured the remained of the coffee in there.
As I sit with my makeshift cup, Brother Lucho came alongside me. “Queeseso?” What is that? He asked. And after telling him of my goofiness, he runs into his home and returns with a coffee cup for me. He said to use it until I didn’t need it anymore. Oh the blessed man is the sweetest person I have ever met!
We sat in silence just watching the clouds that collided with the jungle covered mountains around us. He broke the silence by saying the same thing that I was thinking. How marvelous is our God! We got into a conversation about nature being a testimony to the Lord’s goodness. And how man is thoroughly mistaken to think that any part of it is needing modification or is unimportant just because we can’t see the immediate need for it. Not a conversation I ever thought I would have in Spanish. And he was just as much of an advocate as I was.
The conversation switched to more personal things, family, and testimonies. And I was thoroughly blessed by his. Wow, God is good!
Then followed breakfast, laundry once the sun returned, and time to read a book. Lunch left me just as unsatisfied as most meals, and I returned to line for seconds, only to have an onion sandwich since the other supplies disappeared by then. Someone then announced the words I have been dying to hear, “A couple of us are leaving in a half hour to walk to civilization to find snacks!” PRAISE THE LAMB! I hopped in with that crew so fast. After quite a jaunt uphill and about 40ish minutes walking along the main road we ended up at a place that looked nothing like civilization. It was a couple brick roadside stands with sodas, various packaged cookies and chips, and candy. After running around like crazy and petting every shop owners pet, I bought enough snacks to survive the coming week. Never in my life have I walked an 1.5 hours for cookies, but this is something that may happen more than we know.
I asked one of the vendors about the nearby town of Coroico. She said it was only another perhaps hour and a half away. And from the rumors, Coroico has internet, coffee, and chocolate. So a group of us plan to leave right after breakfast on our next day off on that incredible journey. If you are reading this in the middle of the month, that means I somehow got my little USB to Coroico…otherwise, I am in La Paz at the end of the month to catch a bus to Peru. It’s an odd odd life here ya’ll.
