I can’t swim and OUR BOAT IS TIPPING OVER

Why won’t those other boats help us? Who is going to get us out? I hate water.

OH MY, OUR BOAT IS TIPPING!

How deep is the water again?

I can just stand straight up, right?

C’mon now.

Don’t tell me it’s gonna take all of us to push this boat out of the mud!

Countless questions bombarded my mind as we sat for what seemed like seven hours, forty nine minutes and fifty-two seconds midstream the two-thousand floating villages of Siem Riep, Cambodia. 

Whose great idea was this? Why didn’t I learn how to swim at 4-H Camp that year?

As the young driver jumped to the back of the boat blowing through the tube and spitting out something or other, I placed my head in my lap reminding my breathing to be slow and steady. 

Leisa noticed me panicking. “Sissy, what’s going on? You praying or crying?”

Just sitting here.

In fact I was, just sitting there praying and hoping that tears wouldn’t come streaming down my face. I was too prideful to admit to my team how much fear had crept into my body.

Images of the day kept replaying in my head as I hummed hymns to calm myself.

Remember the cute kids who jumped from their boat to yours selling pop? Don’t forget about how much you enjoyed laughing as the mud spit from the back of the boat onto that book you were reading? What about that little girl who asked for $1 as she let the dangerous looking snake crawl around her neck? And don’t let those alligators from the dock slip your mind. 

And, oh think about how blessed you are to be seeing all of this right now, enjoying your time with friends when that man in the other boat was blind and needed money for his family.

I regained my composure only to have it lost again as my friends leaned to the right of the boat to prevent it from tipping over to the left.

“The water isn’t very high. Even if we fall to the left you could still stand up in the water,” Jeanne tried to reassure me.

But I don’t want to fall period. Why am I in a boat to begin with? This isn’t my cup of tea at all. I don’t even like tea unless it’s sweet and this sure ain’t sweet.

The driver’s helper ran to the back of the boat to help push it out of the mud. 

We’re never gonna get out of this mud. Can’t we just climb into another boat? HELP US PLEASE!   Hey. Don’t drive away. Oh my. That’s seventeen boats that have passed us. What are we gonna do? 

Another pirate looking kid jumps on our boat trying to sell some pop. 

C’mon kid. I don’t want any pop. Our boat is going to tip over soon anyway. I’m gonna get sopping wet. How is a pop gonna help me then?

The pirate then jumps back onto his boat, gets a rope and ties it to our boat. As he drives away our boat gets out of the mud.

THANKYOU JESUS!!! Okay, I’m sorry for being a brat. Thanks kiddo. You’re a lifesaver. 

In the middle of the floating villages I was taught a literal lesson: in the midst of your rocky boat, I’m still with you. Even if you fall out of the boat, I’m still with you. Stop looking for what you think the source of help should be, I’m going to surprise you and send a helper that will really rock your boat and move you into the direction I want you in. Just be patient.