I want to give my next-to-last shoutout to my grandmother Jeanie Chandler. Nana, you ran your race, you fought your fight, and you kept the faith. Be at peace, and know that you will be dearly missed, dearly loved, and touched the lives of everyone around you. I will see you one day soon.
So this weeks blog has little to do with missions/growth/relationships/humor/etc. Instead, I will share with you the events of August 23, 2018.
On this date, I crossed off an entry on my bucket list.
WE RAFTED THE NILE RIVER!
But lets start at the beginning. We awoke at 7:00 AM, took a bus from our hotel to this tiny little lodge out in the sticks on the bank of the river, ate a quick breakfast, split into teams, and set out. The water was clear, calm, blue.
My team, consisted of myself, Tim, Zach, (who decided last minute to join the expedition), Jenny, Madi, Maria, and Rihanna. We were lucky to have Tim (a former river rafting guide himself). Our guide’s name was South (seriously), but he insisted we call him by his nickname “Chicken Wings.” I tell you this guy knew his stuff!
Myself and Tim took our positions at the front of the raft, and we began the day with a capsize drill. That was cool.
We worked our way to the first set of rapids. My team made it down with little difficulty. As we waited for the four other rafts carrying our squad mates at the bottom of a waterfall, we realized that our raft had actually avoided the most dangerous part of the rapid. Initially I was disappointed, but when we saw what was to become of raft number two, I was thankful. My friend Alyssa in raft two bless her heart, had never been rafting before. Her first time out, on her first rapid, she gets thrown from the raft! It got worse. She hit her face on a rock, resulting in multiple cuts on her nose and forehead, and a piece of her tooth chipped away!
Fortunately she had no concussion, and was in the dentist’s office but a few hours later. When we saw her again at the end of the day, we couldn’t even tell she had had the accident. God is good.
Moving on, after rapid number two one of our squad leaders, Charmagne, took an oar to the face, resulting in a large gash above her right eye. She would require stitches!
Moving past rapid number three, it started raining and thundering all around us. But we weren’t in America where fun gets shut down at the first sign of bad weather- we pushed on. The rain was freezing, but seeing it contrast against the mountains around us and ripple against the water was a truly awesome sight.
Tim pushed me out of the raft. Then our guide came alongside another raft and pulled in our squad mate Taylor. This was arguably the funniest thing that occurred in Uganda. Then we came to rapid number three. We were one of the first rafts in. Incidentally, our raft hit the rapid not head on as the raft is designed to do, but rather at an angle where the side of our raft was perfectly flush with the incoming rapid. We flipped over. I went under for I don’t know how long, but when I finally surfaced I had gone about thirty yards, and floated right between the two rescue kayaks. Not that they would have been much help anyway, they hadd both already rescued two others. I grabbed three of my teammate’s oars that had drifted alongside me, and threw them into the supply raft, which was fortunately close by. Then I see the guide in the supply raft rushing toward me to pull me in. Little do I know that he is rushing to pull me in before I get thrown into a bunch of rocks. He pulls me in in time to save me from any major injuries, but my foot got a nasty gash, and my hands got cut up pretty good also. It looks like I got into some sort of underground bare-knuckle boxing match.
After we made it into the boat, we had lunch on the river. I threw pineapple cores at my friends in other boats. I was aiming for Marissa but I hit Mallory (this is a bad thing, as Mallory is very pro-gun, and I’m not entirely sure what she is capable of).
We move on to the next set of rapids. At rapid five, the girl behind me, Rihanna, literally got scared and JUMPED OUT OF THE RAFT! We were still in the middle of the rapids! Simultaneously, my friend Madi gets thrown out. When we finally get our heads on straight, the two girls are way behind us!
We move on to a swimming area. Tim pushes me out again. I pull Jenny in out of spite, Zach pushes Maria in for no reason at all, and once we’re all in the water, Chicken Wings ditches us.
We finally catch up, and we have one more rapid, “The Nile Special”. We make it through alright, but the raft behind us carrying our squad leaders (minus Charmagne) gets tossed like a rodeo clown.
And just to wrap up the perfect day, my group was the first to make it to our final stop. It wasn’t a race, but we won. We were given soda and one of my favorite things in Uganda, Meat-on-a-Stick.
It was everything I dreamed it would be, even more so. There was laughter, excitement, injury, unmanned aerial flight, perfect weather; it was truly the perfect end to this journey we call The World Race. I have some amazing stories to tell from this trip, but I would be hard-pressed to top that one I think. The day was a gift, as if God was saying “You’ve done well, now enjoy a small piece of my creation.” Oh what a day.
Thanks for reading,
-Matt
