BLUE TEAM…we have Chad’s bear and we are holding is for ransom!!!!!
…Dreaming of Starbucks….
So…here we are…sitting on the side of the road in Guatemala. Jessica S and I were reading Blue Light Jazz and they mentioned Starbucks and we started saying…what if we were at home, sitting at Starbucks, dressed cute, had a shower, and were chilling with our coffee. Instead we are sitting on the side of the road in Guatemala, have been in the car for 8 hours, dirty, feet covered in black dirt, smell from the fact that we have been in the car all day, and at a place where if we even say Starbucks they’ll think we are talking about some kind of money.
Jessica Friske and Laura are talking to a little 6 year old named Katie that speaks zero English. She is telling them stories in Spanish and has no clue what she is saying and they are telling her stories in English and she has no clue what she is saying, but she sits and nods her head like she understands every word.
I know…I know…By now you are asking “why are we on the side of the road”? And I know you are dieing to know…so here goes… our faithful Orange is very tired. She has been pushed really hard today and is very tired from going up and down the mountains. She can barely make it up the mountains at 10mph and as we are going up she sputters every 5 seconds or so, so… here we are stuck. A mechanic is looking at it now and says it’s our carburetor and he can have it fixed in 30 minutes. We are sitting here, standing on faith, believing that it will be fixed and we will be able to continue on to get to our destination tonight.
We have been praying through all day long and telling Satan that he is under our feet and he is to get behind us. He has tried to come against us in many different ways, but we have fought it and will continue to fight it. We are being faithful in the fact that we asked the Lord to take care of our car or put a mechanic shop in front of us and here we are sitting on the side of the road at someone’s house and it’s a mechanic shop!!! Isn’t God so good!!!!
From here…let me rewind backwards and start with the beginning of our day. It started at 5:30am when we all got showers, packed, and ready to leave. As we were packing Orange to leave we find out that the South Africans made it to Maisol-ha (the waterfall place we were staying) at 1am. We meet the South Africans and work on the logistics for us all starting the race. They, as well as the red team, are taking the bus to Guatemala and it didn’t leave until 9am, so to be as fair as possible we decide to start the race at 9am, instead of the originally 8am.
It’s 9am and the race is on…we are on our way to Guatemala. Jessica S. and I have been fighting the car sickness the past couple of days from driving the mountains. We start out by claiming that the Lord is going to be faithful and we are not going to get sick from the long drive. We made it 5 hours before we had to go to the bathroom…which is a very big deal. We would not let ourselves drink anything, so we wouldn’t have to stop, so when we did stop it was for gas…not us. We are determined to win this leg of the race and sacrifice whatever to make that happen.
Getting to Guatemala was pretty uneventful…but once we got to the border, it was crazy. We had to go back and forth between Mexico and Guatemala several times for different reasons. Finally, I came across a guy that looked American and he was…he was from LA. So I started talking to him about where we were going, the volcano, and different things. He has been here several times and is very familiar with the area. He was very helpful and gave us his map of Guatemala, but at the same time scared us a bit by telling us about how we needed to get where we were going before dark because people drive like crazy and as many times as he’s been here he wouldn’t drive after dark. After that he boosted our confidence even more by telling us how steep the volcano is and how hard it is to climb. But despite that…we are trusting the Lord and standing in faith that He is going to provide everything we need and take care of us. Satan is defeated…he is under our feet!!!!
(ha ha ha… this is my feet… my shoes broke so I was barefoot in the middle of Guatemala.)
All that said…brings me to the present point where we are sitting on the side of the road waiting for our trusty Orange to get fixed.
Not only did the Lord provide this mechanic shop right in front of us with a mechanic that we can trust, but He has put a auto parts store right next door AND, if that’s not enough…directly across the street is a church that has invited us in and told us if we can not go any longer that we have a place to stay for the night. They have even invited us to be a part of their worship service. As we are praying this through, we know the Lord will provide and tell us the answer to these questions and what He wants us to do…we just have to be faithful and listen.
While we were swimming and playing in the river yesterday, I turned my knee the wrong way. I have always had knee problems, but I feel like that this is an attack that we are going to fight. We are going to pray for my knee and rebuke this because I am getting up that volcano …with NO pain.
As much as our flesh wants to “win” and keep on going tonight, the Lord has spoken to us and made it very clear that we are to stay here tonight. We are going to be staying at a church, where the pastor has graciously taken us in and we are going to get our car fixed first thing in the morning and get on the road as soon as possible. We want to win this so bad, but we know that being faithful to the Lord is more important.
Please pray for us as we are still struggling about what we are being faced with, but doing our best to stay faithful to what the Lord has for us and wants of us.
We will keep you updated…don’t stop praying.
Love you all.
…Feet in Sticky Jelly…
The Pastor at the church we were staying at decided that he wanted us to be a part of his worship service, so Laura, Friske, Elliott, and Hugh stayed to worship with them in the service. Paul, Jessica, and I took off hoping to get the above blog posted so everyone would know what’s going on. We made it to town (it’s the border town about 15 minutes away) and people were everywhere, it was insane. We finally found the internet café and it was closed…so much for getting to blog. On our way out we saw the red team. They had taken the bus earlier that day and had just got to Guatemala. We talked to them for a bit and offered to let them stay at the church with us, instead they decided to go ahead and get on a bus that was about to leave, so they could get up the volcano ASAP.
This got the wheels in our heads turning. We wanted to win, but at the same time we were okay with loosing, BUT if we had an opportunity to still win…we wanted it. So we got back to the church and sat through the rest of the service. After that, we had a team meeting and Paul, Jessica, and I brought to the table everything that we were thinking and our “plan”.
Here is the plan (after us going through thousands of different thought and option this is what we came up with)…Friske, Jessica, Hugh, Elliott, and I would all get on the bus that leaves at 1am. (Since we were the ones climbing the volcano.) We would ride all night long, catch about 2 other busses along the way and get there by 6am to start up the volcano. Paul and Laura would stay behind, sleep at the pastor’s house, and after the car got fixed come meet us at the bottom of the volcano. The team all agreed. Everyone felt at peace. Everyone knew the Lord wanted us there for the worship service and now it was okay to leave.
After having dinner with the Pastor and his family (toast and jelly…it’s ALL they had) and parying healing over my knee and the Pstor´s Wife´s back… Paul, Elliott, and Friske went to town to go ahead and get our bus tickets. Jessica, Hugh, and I got everything ready to go and got our selves dressed and ready to climb.
Paul, Fricke, and Elliott came back and said “bad news” it is going to be $12 per person and we are going to have to take 4 busses to get there and they are all going to cost that much and it’s going to take about 8-9 hours to get there. What…that’s ridiculous we were only 4-5 hours max away AND they had already told us it was going to be $2.50 per person.
They said that it was crazy and one guy would say one thing and tell you to go talk to this person and he would tell you something else and finally they got the info from a driver that was asleep on the bus. Elliott went to talk to the pastor because he knew we were getting ripped off and the pastor agreed to go with us to where the buses are talk to them for us.
We all got ready and we were off to get on the bus. Along ride, in the middle of the night, we all had been up for at least 20 hours already…but we were going to sleep on the way we were determined to get there and win. We get to where the buses are and the pastor and Elliott get out and go talk to them. They were gone for almost 45 minutes, when they finally come tell us that it’s going to cost $5 per person on the first bus and little amounts on the other. It’s going to take 4 buses to get there, but will be there in 5 hours. We said great…let’s go… we were so excited, so we all load on the first bus and we are off.
For the first 30-45 minutes or so it was okay…got a little sleep, but not much (about 10 minutes) then the bus starts stopping everyone 5-10 minutes or so to pick other people up…before I knew it the bus was full and we were getting NO sleep.
We get off that bus and got on the second…oh my gosh…I can not begin to describe to you what we just got ourselves into. We were all sitting there and said “how do you describe this to anyone”?
Let me try…so we get off the first and find out our second bus is leavening right now. (Let me stop for a second…there are NO bus stations here, you just have to ask random people where to go what to do.) We go to the second bus; get on and there is NO room I mean people everywhere. People are sitting 3 to a seat, people are standing up. It’s about a 42 passenger school bus and there are well over 100 people on this bus. So, the driver’s helper that takes up the money and such comes and starts telling us we have to sit. So…we are all trying to squeeze in somewhere, it was ridiculous.
This was the craziest bus ride I have ever been on. (I have to leave parts out due to the fact I don’t want to freak some people out.) Come to find out the nick name for these buses is Chicken Buses…due to the fact that they love to play chicken. When they come to a play where they are about to let people off, they driver’s helper will open the bus door and climb on top off the bus, while it is still going full speed down the mountain to start getting people’s things off the roof. Jessica was in my lap and the guy next to me had fallen asleep with his head on my arm. I could go on and on, but I can not tell you how crazy it was.
We got on a third bus after that, it was pretty calm, which was a nice break from the bus that we were just on. Then we got on a fourth to take us to our final destination. That one was pretty crazy too. I sat by a 13 yr old that was breast feeding her baby that was at least 2 yr old.
Finally at 6:30am we get off the last bus. We have had zero sleep, we are hungry, and we all need to use the bathroom. We stop for coffee and a bathroom at a hotel that was right by the lake we were about to cross. We charter a private express boat to get us across the lake to the volcano as fast as possible.
About 45 minutes we stop and the guys gets ready to let us out and we notice the volcano is behind us. Elliott had not explained clearly to him and we were in the wrong place. We talk to the guy and he is going to charge us even more to take us to the volcano…we say okay because we have to get there.
We get to the volcano and it is crazy. What we were about to climb was straight up nothing but rocks and boulders and there was NO trail. We start up anyway. We get a little ways and find out that this is impossible…literally.
So, we come down. The captain of the boat is waiting on us because he knew that we weren’t getting up that way. We asked him to take us to the other side, where people normally go up. He charges us more money, but gets us there. We get to the other side and by now it’s about 9:30 and we are so worn out from all this and no sleep.
We go to check our email and there is an email that says it would be a good idea to talk to a travel company. Friske and Elliott go talk to them and say you have to pay $20 to get up the volcano. We just got through giving this boat guy almost $100, not to mention our bus tickets. It was so late in the day; we had been advised to not start the climb after 8am, so we decided to wait to climb.
All we wanted was people we knew. We got the address to the hotel that Cathy was staying in; where everyone was eventually suppose to meet. We have NO idea where this place is. Is it here on the island with the volcano, across on the other side, where? We are still worrying about Paul and Laura…did they make it? Where are they? Are they okay? How are they going to find us? Etc etc.
I believe we were all pretty much at our lowest point, so we just started praying (God might have been tired of us from praying because we were doing it so much.) J So I start to pray and I say God “we need a miracle…you are the God of miracles and we need one”. The minute that came out of my mouth I look over and there is Ann Marie (the South African leader). Friske and I just start crying. She tells us that Cathy and the Red Team are in a restaurant about 10 feet from us. We go talk to them and get settled down a bit.
We still didn’t know what to do about Paul and Laura and we were all so tired, we just wanted a bed. So…we get something to eat and talk to Cathy and what we should do and our thoughts. We finally decide that we are going to get 2 hotel rooms and go to sleep. We are going to email Paul and Laura and they can come and meet us there.
We go get the hotel rooms and the minute we are about to pay I say…wait. If we stay here, the only way to get here is by boat, so our truck with all of our stuff in it will be left there and a great chance of all of it getting stolen. So, we decide to go back across the lake to the main city that Paul and Laura kept looking at on the map, get a hotel room there, and email them and let them know where we are. We tell Cathy that if she talks to them or sees them, email us and tell them to stay put.
We come back across the lake and start walking and asking prices of hotel rooms and hostels. They are all too expensive. We are literally broke from our day. We come across a church and ask if we can sleep for the night. It’s the pastor’s son that we are talking to, but he says yes. The pastor is not there, but will be in 20 minutes and when he gets here they’ll okay it all. The pastor gets there and is so kind and welcomes us in and says we can stay through the weekend. They take us to the back where we will be staying and it’s a bible college!!!!! It has rooms with bunk beds, showers, running water (not hot…but we don’t care), kitchen, etc etc. It’s crazy. The Lord is so awesome. The college has been inactive for about 6 months, so it’s a little run down but not much. Right now, we don’t care…it is such an answer to prayer.
We leave the Bible College to go email Paul and Laura and tell them where we are. We get to the internet and have and email from Cathy saying that they are here…in the same town as us and she told them to not move until they heard from us. Praise God!!!!
We email them and come to find out they didn’t get it, but I get an email from Laura saying that they are at an internet café by the beach, so what do we do? Start walking the whole city looking in every internet café and then…what happens…we see Orange!!!! So, we know Paul and Laura are close…we start running the streets like crazy white Americans trying to find them, when we see Laura’s head peak out from an internet café. God is so good. He is so amazing; the way everything worked out was only from Him.
That pretty much brings me to present…It is 8am and Friske, Jessica, Hugh, Elliott, and Paul are hiking the volcano.
You ask…why am I not? You remember I told you about my knee hurting so bad, we’ll I’m in the bed right now and can hardly move because every joint in my body from my head to toe hurts so bad. My back, knees, wrists, ankles, fingers, you name it, it hurts. This is definitely an attack from the enemy. Three years ago I was healed of my arthritis and he is trying to put these lies in my head about it. I am going to fight this and he will not win.
Please keep me in your prayers. Keep the other teammates in your prayers while they are hiking, and keep us in your prayers as the Lord shows us what He wants us to do here in Guatemala.
