Ok, so Yipeekayae was just to get your attention. But its bout that time, close to the end of our time in Guatemala. It’s sorta bitter sweet, in the sense I have just loved being here in Guatemala, but also looking forward to being in Nicaragua. Nicaragua is supposed to be one of two poorest countries in the world, so I guess I’m expecting the situation over there to be much worse, but looking forward to how the Lord will choos to use us there and the work He’l be doing in us at same time.
Yesterday marked an end to our time with the medical missions team from Lee Univ from Tennessee. Its been a blessing working with them, a few more brothers and sisters I have gained on this trip, a great bunch for sure. We have about four more days here in Huehue, before we head out on the 29th. It’s still actually suprising we’ve been here in Guatemala about a month already.
So a couple days ago, we got to travel to a small town called Todos Santos, located deep in one of G-mala’s many valleys, completely surrounded by mountains that literally reach up to the sky. Now for us to get there, we first have to climb up the mountain from Huehue, which is a pretty interesting climb on its own merit, but having done it a few times, holding clinics at a couple towns, at the top of the mountain, it kinda becomes…not too bad, I guess the scenery completely makes up for it, especially once you realize you’re riding high above the clouds, it becomes pretty amazing.
Now although this first part of the climb was pretty routine, that is if riding the side of a cliff with roads that look and feel like they were paved with potholes and speed bumps ever gets routine (wasn’t always sure why the speed bumps, you could barely ever make it past 2nd gear anyway, if you were lucky enough to get out of 1st). All that changed very quickly when our magic yellow school bus lost its uphill battle due of diesel problems. Unfortunately, I did not get to witness the mayhem that ensued in the bus at the sound of sputtering and the bus barely able to move uphill….the reason?? As some of you that know, I LOVE TO DRIVE, especially when you throw in a stick shift. Anyway for the past week or so, I have been blessed with being able to drive one of our contacts trucks…like a lifted 4 door(crew cab) deisel 4×4 pickup truck. Yep, i’m sure you can see the smile on my face, not the most comfortable thing out there, but a true workhorse that needs a lot of gear shifting, back and forth, to get it uphill…but fun!
So yea, on this day out of the ordinary, I was in the truck with a few others ahead of the bus, when we got the distress call…so a U-turn we did, back down hill, to see the bus sputtering and barely moving. The narrow two lane whinedy mountain pass becomes a staging area for our little convoy, as we pretty much blocked off one lane and stopped almost every pickup truck that came by looking to get all the med packages, and everyone off the bus to a more convenient staging area. It was pretty fun and intense, trying to control traffic across that one lane of a mountain pass on a road that seemed really busy with trucks, buses and even bigger trucks.
There was a lot of jumping into the back of random pickup trucks to get us up the mountain and in my truck, we piled about 7 people in the cab and another like 6 or 7 people hanging in the back on the bed of the truck with some of the medical load I already had stuffed there. It was truly exciting to say the least. So yea, this was just the 1st half ouf our exciting trip. We still had to get to the new staging area, and get the team back together again. We had a few teammates that had hitched a ride past the new staging area, and so it was a good relief and funny at same time to see them from afar walking down the road to us.
It was a good reunion, everyone was accounted for and in good health and no sooner did we try to find other more secure means of transport to get us the rest of the way, our yellow magic school bus driven by Juan Carlos himself, the best most amazing bus driver from all, even those yet to be seen, came rolling up to the staging area. There was a lot of cheering and recounting of the events that just transpired. We loaded up, and we were back on the road again….Now, we had to go down, down, down the mountain.
Hmm…getting a little long, so i’ll continue the events of the day on the next edition of Yipeekayae!….pls come again!!
