After 12 hours of ministry this past Sunday which included setting up equipment and chairs, walking around the community inviting folks to the service, singing, preaching, conducting communion (yeah, this was a surprise task which ended with my articulate self saying, “and now….you take.”), putting away all the equipment and chairs, dropping people off around town, baking 500 sausage rolls, making 14 tomato and chicken sandwhiches, talking with our contacts about their vision for the ministry in Bagot, walking to the bus station, sending two sick teammate home, setting up more equipment and chairs, walking around the community again, passing out cordial and treats during the service, passing out bread for families to take home, putting away equipment and chairs. Yikes, long day. So, as we get ready to leave, David (our main contact) tells us that we will be going home in the troopy. Super, now as we are walking towards the troopy, we get stopped by another of our contacts and as she was talking to us the troopy drives off. Ummm…David, why did the troopy drive off? So, Nicole, Callie, and I start running down the street to catch the troopy. It stopped at the end of the road and we piled in with 11 other people making the grand total of 14 people in a place made for 8. Nicole and I sat on the bench and Callie sat across our laps. Here’s the thing about riding in a troopy, you feel everything. With ever gear shift everyone goes forward and on every bump people are thrown from their seats a bit. I’ve got my arm around Callie’s waist to try and keep her on my lap rather than having her fly onto the laps of the men sitting across from us.
We finally make it to our first stop where about half the people get off at a hostel. So now there is room for everyone to have their own seat. We drive a bit further and then Isobel pulls up to what looks like another hostel, but the gate is closed so Isobel, our contact’s wife, drives up onto the grass a bit and says in her sweet little voice, “We are going to do a bit of off-roading now.” My thoughts of this statement: “Ok, she’s going to park here on the grass so she the others can get out.” Ha! No, no, where ever we were was not where we were going, we preceded to drive through the grass for a moment and then we went through some sort of bog, water, mud, super tall grass, around a huge, dead, fallen over tree, and finally stop in front of a house. 1 second we were in the middle of the city and the next moment we were in a swamp. After a bit more manuvering though mud, water, grass, and some sort of fence, which makes me think our off-roading wasn’t completly “allowed”, we made it back to the road and dropped of the last few passengers and found we were only a few short blocks from home. Pretty crazy end to a long day of ministry and I would have it no other way. Just another day on the World Race.
This would be a troopy.
