I had a little time to get on the internet today.
This month is “manistry month” so all the guys on the squad are on one team for the month. We are located in the small town of Apolo in the mountains of Bolivia. This past weekend we ventured away from Apolo to minister to a small village in the Amazon called Huaratumo. To get there we had to take a trip on the back of pickup trucks that would take us through the mountains and into the jungle, and let me tell you, it was a trip.
The plan starting out was to leave in the morning on Friday, however, after rainstorms all Thursday night our departure time shifted to after breakfast. We were told that it was a four hour journey (on a good weather day) and half of us would ride in a van while the other half took off in the back of a truck. Of course being all guys, everyone wanted to go in the back of the truck. I, on the other hand, thought that would get very old after four hours. So as the truck people left, us van people laughed saying, “Standing up (which was the only way they could all fit) is going to get old for those guys.” After about an hour of waiting our vehicle pulled up, and what was it? Another truck. And not just any truck but one that had burlap sacks of supplies and a small propane tank already in the back. We piled our bags into the truck and got comfortable. After a little maneuvering, we had the bed set up so we could all sit down.
Now that we were ready, we set out of town. On the outskirts of town we stopped outside of a house. I was wondering what we were doing when a woman and her baby jumped in the back of the truck with us. Apparently, we were not the only ones who wanted to go to Hauratumo that day. The extra people in the truck, forced a few of us, including me, to stand and hold on to the cage surrounding the truck. I didn’t have a ton of room, but I was better off than my friend Cole who was now forced to stand on the propane tank. Once again, we were ready to set off when the mother whips them out and starts nursing her child.
So we finally get on our way, and the drive is absolutely beautiful! The mountains are a lush green and seem to roll on forever. I’ve been more comfortable in my life, but with the view of the mountains I couldn’t complain. A little over an hour into our trip we stopped in a very tiny village to stretch our legs and buy a snack. After about fifteen minutes of this, we all pile back in to find that we have now picked up two young kids that looked about six and eight years old and a burlap sack filled with three live chickens. My feet found two places the size of postage stamps in the back corner of the truck that happen to be straddling the chickens.
A little ways down the road it starts to rain so the driver hops out and puts up a tarp around the cage of the bed. This would have been great, however, I am taller than the cage as a result I had to lean over with my body in an “L” with the chickens between my legs (one of which is now dead), a child directly in front of me, and the mother holding her child to my right. Since I am at the corner of the bed, the driver hands me a corner of the tarp to hold on to as well. I was quickly realizing that I wouldn’t be able to move for the next few hours when the mother decided her baby was hungry again.
When the rain subsided, I weaved my body out of the cage to get a little fresh air. With the dirt road now wet, we would fishtail around every curve in the mountain, and I got to see the valley deep below. For a while, I was afraid I would be standing by the chicken in line to see St. Peter at the gates of Heaven that day. But in the end, God saw us safely through the trip with nothing but a bruised hip from hitting against the side of the truck.
