Day 3 of the Hike to Mojos
The hike to the Mojos was one of the most unique and challenging experiences I have ever endured in my life. Day 1 we hiked around 8 or 9 hours, Day 2 we hiked around 10 hours, and the point in this story I am going to start it in this blog is on Day 3 after already hiking 10 hours. My body was exhausted from hiking up and down steep mountainous terrain, my muscles were sore, my stomach and waist ached from carrying the brunt majority of the weight in my pack, and my clothes were drenched in sweat. It was around 5:30pm and my team, Odell, and I stopped to catch our breathes at the top of a mountain we had just spent the past hour and half hiking up. From the top of this mountain we could see the village of Mojos close to the top of the mountain ahead of us. Encouraging and motivating, yet still defeating and intimidating because that meant one more down AND one more LONG up. I knew I could handle the down, even if my knees weren’t going to like it, and I knew that in reality I could do just one last uphill. However, my body couldn’t do what my mind was asking it to. It was too burnt out. This was extremely frustrating because I feel like while I am not the most fit person, I am strong and I felt as if I should have been able to overcome this obstacle without as much difficulty as I was experiencing.
I was in the back of our group on the downhill when we ran into a man named Roberto from Mojos on the trail and he offered to take my big pack uphill to the village. What a relief and blessing that was! In return I took Odell’s small back pack which was less than half the weight of what I was carrying. The next twenty minutes I felt like a drunk person walking because my body was so confused by the weight difference, but my abdomen was cramping because I no longer had all the weight sitting around my waist. I wish I could describe this feeling better. At this point, Roberto has passed us and Odell has caught up with the rest of my teammates leading the pack, but Cassie is still in the back with me (which we discovered is the hardest place to be because for some weird reason it is like mentally or psychologically defeating to see everyone ahead of you and feel like you have to catch up. It’s weird). We began the uphill trudging and I kept having to stop every 50ft or so to catch my breath and try to regain strength to keep going. (Again, super frustrating because mentally I knew I could do it and wanted to be on top of that mountain, and I knew we were so stinking close, AND I now have the lightest pack. It should have been easier for me)
Despite my elongating of our last leg up the mountain, Cassie stayed patient with me, encouraged me and eventually ended up taking the small backpack and carrying it along with her big pack, leaving me carrying nothing. I fought her on taking the pack, but she insisted explaining how she would enjoy being able to do that for me. I believe my exact words to Cassie were, “You are literally stripping me of all my pride right now,” in an attempt to keep the backpack on. And do you know what she said in response?? She says, “Maybe God is trying to teach you something about that, Shan,” as she just smiles and extends her hand. I hated giving her that bag, but if my muscles could have, they would have been doing flips and cartwheels of joy and gratitude. I swallowed my pride, as an independent person, as a team leader, as someone who would rather be the helper than be the one being helped, and let Cassie carry my weight up the rest of that mountain. It sucked, but I love that girl so much more because of it. To top it all off, right before we round the corner where the rest of my team is, she hands me back the small back pack, so that no one else would see I carried nothing up the hill, and she so gently let me save what little, if any, sense of pride I had left.
God did a lot in those last 20-25 minutes up the hill in my heart. He reminded me of the story of Moses in the Bible that I had recently read in Exodus 17 when Moses had led the people out of Egypt and God provided them with bread and water in the wilderness, then they were being attacked by Amelek.
“So Moses said to Joshua, ‘Choose for us men, and go out and fight with Amalek. Tomorrow I will stand on the top fo the hill with the staff of God in my hand. So Joshua did as Moses told him, and fought with Amalek, while Moses, Aaron, and Hur went up to the top of the hill. Whenever Moses held up his hand, Israel prevailed. But Moses’ hands grew weary, so they took a stone and put it under him, and he sat on one side. So his hands were steady until the going down of the sun. And Joshua overwhelmed Amalek and his people with his sword.”
Exodus 17:9-13
When I read this originally it stood out to me because I didn’t ever remember reading it before or hearing it as part of any Moses stories. It also stood out to me because it showed me how we aren’t supposed to do it all alone and sometimes we need people to help us out. Cassie was my Aaron or Hur that day. She carried me when I couldn’t do it alone.
Then, as I am pushing through with every ounce of energy I had left, God tells me how much He loves the people that live in Mojo and He thinks they are worth the pain and hardship it took for us to get there. World rocked. If I had tears (which I don’t because my tear ducts don’t work) this is where I would use the phrase “it brought tears to my eyes”. Instead I just got choked up and started to cry. I thought about Christ carrying His cross up the hill before He was crucified, covered in open lash wounds, pieces of his flesh literally hanging off his body, blood dripping from his head where they put a crown of thorns…. and He did it with joy.
He gladly chose surrender for you and I. Woah.
My pain was nothing compared to His. It was very real, but it was NOTHING compared to what He endured, and endured with JOY because He knew what His crucifixion and resurrection meant for us. He knew the Father’s will and He willingly chose surrender. He was thinking of you when He was on that cross. He was thinking of me. He was thinking of the people in Mojos. He was thinking of us when He rose from the grave. And I believe He would do it over and over again if He was asked to, but thankfully what He did on the cross was once and for all. “It is finished.”
Talk about a moment of humility and perspective God gave me on the mountain. I can testify to this- that if there is one thing I can tell you for sure it’s that the power of God is what got my team and I through that hike to Mojos, the love of God gave us any joy we had in doing it, and the grace of God carried us, and the power of prayer shielded us with protection because there was a lot that could have gone wrong.
God met me on a mountain in the Amazon jungle.
