So for those of you that might’ve been worried. Our team survived the Jungle. I will try and retell the story through a 4 part blog series with many pictures. Hopefully we’ll get enough internet time soon to update all of yall. Here is the first part.
So for our “Ask the Lord” month we decided to come
to Malaysia. Our squad leader found us a
ministry in Kuala Lampur, the capital city which sounded very enticing. We expected to be working in a very
relationship ministry where we would be working in a coffee shop, doing street
evangelism, and caring for refugees. I
was extremely excited about what I thought was ahead for us this month. But as I’ve learned on the World Race is the
only expectations you can have is to expect your plans to change. We arrived at our ministry contact to meet Peter
and Carol and they were very welcoming and seemed to be great contacts from the
first meeting. Shortly after we heard
that one of our teams, we were teamed up with Carin’s team, was heading out to
the jungle. Everyone from our team felt
we were going to be the jungle team.
Around 24 hours after we arrived in Kuala Lampur we get official word
that we in fact are heading out of the city.
The official word is also coupled with the no electricity, no running
water, no internet news and the “pack your bags, you’re leaving in an hour.”
So this first blog will simply talk
about our travel from the capital city to heart of the Malaysian jungle. Pastor Tony and his friend Santana pick us up
in KL around 9 pm and we drive east to a small town. We stay at Santana’s house and are told we
will head to the village in the morning.
Morning brings rain, and Tony warns us that we may not make it to the
village due to the rain, but we’re going to try. The road to the village is a 15 mile dirt
road that is very hilly. The rain turns
the dirt into mud and many times it is simply impassable. So we gather
supplies; Tony uses our money and buys enough food to feed a small village and
we hit the dirt road. With little
resistance we make it to the 2nd village on the road, but our
destination is the 3rd village.
We rest in the 2nd village, wait for the roads to dry up then
around 3 PM give the last leg of the trip a shot. We make it about halfway and Tony’s truck
gets stuck, the road simply cannot be passed by truck. Fortunately, Tony is able to back down the
hill and turn around and make it back to our previous location. We decide a tractor will be the only way to
get to the next village and darkness is coming so we set up camp in the 2nd
village.
The road ahead.
The next day begins with optimism
that the tractor which is pulling a wagon we are riding will bring us to the
next village and we can settle in. If
only it were that easy. Around 200
meters outside of village #2 we hit our first ditch and the wagon’s hitch bends
to where our team, is leaning forward toward the tractor at a 30 degree
angle.
Here is us in the wagon.
Our driver is unaware of this
predicament and we have to yell to get his attention. He looks back casually then shock and
confusion comes across his face. All the
children and men of the village come out to inspect the wagon and we are able
to bend it back in place.
Here is us bending the wagon back into place.
The men begin
to chop down tree branches to place under the wagon to keep it from tipping
over. As the village men work to repair
the wagon they tell us to walk on. “I
mean it’s just 10 miles, I wanted to walk anyway” is the first thing that came
to mind. So we venture on ahead
wondering if we really needed that machete our driver had with him. The walk is at a slow pace due to the fact
that our feet get stuck in the mud and slipping down is a constant threat. After around 3 hours we finally make it to
the village about the same time our wagon makes it and the sky drops out and it
starts pouring. If getting here is this
much of an adventure, I only wonder what living here will be like. See part 2 of this blog.
The middle of the journey.
