As if our friend Steven hasn’t blessed us enough in the week we’ve been at his hostel, he took us up to Talaga Warna for some jungle trekking near tea fields. After a 2 hour drive, we all clambered out of the van, in awe of our surroundings.
Walking down a path, we came to a little reservoir surrounded by a wall of green foliage. Beyond beautiful. They are nearly done building some huts which I jokingly asked my team if they thought they’d be within the World Race budget. The only response I got were a few chuckles. Apparently they didn’t think it was likely to be a resting point for racers.
We asked one of the men working on the hut if we were to continue on the path we were on. He pointed us on and said we’d come upon a path. While we found a path, it only just circled back around to the main road. We walked back up the road, admiring the tea fields down the mountainside as we went.
Returning to our original starting point, Steven asked for directions, and got us to the trailhead. We walked for a couple hours, with every step taking us to even more beautiful scenery. At one point, we came to a clearing and looked out to the city below. Imagine you are surrounded by plants, trees, and tea bushes altogether a dozen shades of green, throw in a few pink flower patches, and add in a light, fluffy cloud cover over it all. Yes, we were above the clouds, surrounded by breathtaking beauty, torn between pressing on and staying a bit to take in the view.
This continued for a few hours. Ya know…just meandering through the jungle in the mountains of Indonesia. Occasionally checking the gps to ensure we were on the right track. We discovered a little ways in that the term “path” should be used very lightly to describe the trail we were walking through. Some parts were more traveled than others, some were covered in vines, branches, and other plants. We were climbing over/under fallen trees, through vines (several of which covered in thorns), on dirt paths, on fallen leaf ground cover, through miscellaneous sticks and branches sticking every-which-way, and I was LOVING it. Sure, we had the occasional spiderweb in our path, or the random inchworms hitching a ride, and maybe a few (ok basically 1 every 10 minutes) leaches latching on for dear life, but we were surrounded by lush greenery, moss covered trees, and literally walking through a cloud. I mean, is this real life??
And then it started to shift.
Then the clear, well traveled paths became fewer and farther between, leaving us to make our own way. Then the overgrowth became more of a hindrance, making us wish for a machete. Then we realized we really needed to be heading down the side of the mountain, but the only clear “paths” we’re continuing along the top, and looking down the mountain revealed a nearly straight down drop off. Then it was 3:15, meaning we only had about 2 hours until sundown. Then the thunder rolled in. Then we started running into paths with dead ends.
At this point, we were all pretty beat. We left the hostel just after breakfast. Expecting a relatively short and easy trek, we didn’t pack anything for lunch. We were all operating on a few pieces of peanut butter toast, and maybe some oatmeal, that we ate 7 hours prior.
Knowing we really just needed to get down the mountain, we started following pseudo-paths/making our own way down, only to run into steep drop offs, too steep to climb down, or shrubbery far to thick and congested to consider braving with a small pocket knife.
I started praying quietly.
Emilyann started playing praise music.
We slowly made our way down a steep path, and after about 10-15 minutes of slipping and sliding our way down, realized there was absolutely no way around the cliff, so we turned around and climbed back, slipping and sliding away.
We tried another relatively open area (and by open I mean it was not a complete wall of branches, trees, and spiky vines), only to encounter another dead end.
The clock is ticking.
It starts sprinkling off and on.
Nerves are setting in.
Our clothes are drenched from the humidity, sweat, and light mist.
The temperature was low enough that if I hadn’t just been hiking up and down a mountain, I would have been cold (for the 2nd time in 3 1/2 months).
Suddenly I got a bug bite/sting on the inside of my middle finger. It was burning and spreading to the rest of my finger, until my whole finger is on fire, but also numb. Not even 2 minutes later, I get another sting/bite and the same thing happens to my pinky on the same hand. Half of my hand is numb. I keep checking for a stinger that got stuck, or a thistle sticking out, or ANYTHING I can do to make it better. I’m so preoccupied thinking about the pain/numbness in my hand, and what it could possibly mean, that I’m not paying attention to my path. Just then I slide a good 5 feet down the mountain side, falling to my back and finding my feet tangled up on the vine/root mess we’ve got happening in the middle of the “path.”
Frustrated, and knowing I needed my undivided attention on the path, I stopped and prayed for healing, and that the feeling be restored, then jumped back up and continued down. Almost immediately the pain and numbness were GONE!
I’m starting to think about what would be the best way to make sure everyone is warm, even though drenched and in near freezing temps overnight. (Come to find out, we were all playing out similar scenarios in our minds)
I start thinking about just how many mosquito bites we’ll all have after spending a night in the mountain jungle.
Steven is making calls to friends in the area trying to get in touch with the park ranger so they can start a search and rescue operation. Yes, we were most definitely to that point of desperation.
Cell service goes in and out, and we aren’t really able to keep in touch.
Suddenly we stop and pray World Race style (everyone taking to God simultaneously). We ask for guidance, patience, strength, energy, and for the path to be revealed.
And we press on. Climbing through areas not big enough to fit a toddler, doing our best to clear the path as we went.
Then we turned the corner, and saw an actual semi-path! We reached a fork in the road, took the one to the left…another dead end.
Beginning to feel a little defeated, we retraced our steps back down to the path, and took the only other path. After a few minutes, at the next fork, Steven turned to me and said “I feel confident that this is the way down.” Having gone a few hours with no one feeling confident in our path choices, I knew that confidence was Holy Spirit led.
We followed that path down, it started sprinkling again, but we didn’t let the water and mud get in our way. Only after many sliding incidents down the steep slope, and more cuts, thistles, and leeches, and about 30-45 minutes, we FINALLY broke through the tree cover and saw the rows of tea bushes!
Praise Him!
However, it doesn’t end there. We still had to hike through tea fields, with rows intended for lateral crossing, not climbing down. We were still sliding and falling, but we could actually see dirt roads ahead. We could see the general direction we needed to go. This was all we needed! After another 10-30 minutes down the tea field, and another ~2 mile hike up the road, we FINALLY made it back to our starting point.
God answered our prayers today.
