Our day started out like any typical day at HoC, Heart of Christ. I got up out of bed and headed downstairs for some cornflakes and coffee. Then our team decided to pray over and write Scripture on the white walls of the Children’s Home. We prayed and listened to the Spirit and wrote the words that He gave us, after a while we stepped back and looked at all the passages we wrote—no two passages we the same! What a great way to start our adventure day!
For this adventure day we were headed to the Valley of Angels, a small tourist town nestled in the mountains. So 9 of us, plus the driver, piled into the truck—4 in the cab, and 5 in the bed. (For those of you who are wondering who the extra 3 people are, they are our SQL Allison, Kayla, a HoC intern, and Dominic, our host’s son. We begin driving up into the mountains on a windy, bumpy dirt road. We finally arrive and wander around the town in search of coffee and souvenirs. We all ate lunch of a root top terrace and then did some more shopping.
So first off, lunch got a bit crazy. After we finished eating Allison bet Rachael that she couldn’t kill a fly with a wooden skewer. Challenge accepted. It didn’t very long before a dead fly was lying on the table and money was owed and another bet was offered. This bet was that a coin would be flipped, if it landed heads up Rachael would forgive Allison’s debt, tails Allison would buy the mug of Rachael’s choice. Coined flipped and tails. Now we are back out in the town looking for a certain mug. We finally found the certain mug. (Let’s just say that this mug isn’t your typical mug.)
Now the day gets really interesting, we all pile back in the truck, but before we headed home we headed to a generous missionary who donated about 20 huge bags of oranges for us to take home to HoC and other local ministries. As we set off for her home it begins raining, no big deal, we all have rain jackets or ponchos. As we drive higher into the mountains it begins to rain harder and Courtney starts to realize that her rain jacket isn’t really a rain jacket it is just a wind breaker. Courtney is soaked, then it rains even harder and we are all soaked. What do we do when we are riding in the back of a truck, soaked, and lost in the mountains—well we laugh. We laugh because what else can we do. We eventually find the oranges and proceed to load over 500 pounds of oranges and 100 pounds of bananas on top of the cab, on the tailgate, or wherever they fit. Oh, by the way it is still raining. We get back into the truck and start heading home.
As we drive back through town we get the strangest looks from the locals. I mean how often do they see 5 gringos and 600lbs of fruit piled on a truck—probably never until now. We laugh some more as we travel back down the mountain to home, because we realize that we just became the stereotypical World Racer—riding in the back of a truck while its raining, with 500lbs of oranges piled around us. It eventually stopped raining and the clouds moved on and left us with an endless sky of stars. It was amazing! It is definitely one of the best days on Race so far, a day that I can’t help but remember for all laughs we had.
Before the rain began!
Sara and Allison hiding in the truck.
The truck, us, and all the oranges you could wish for!
