Series of
events to get to Higerones (a small community, or just one house, in the middle
of the Ecuadorian rain forest).
1) The girls played soccer at 9pm the night
before we left. We were all sore and
poor Liliana sprained her ankle pretty badly.
2) We were supposed to leave at 5 am to
meet friend in El Carmen around 9 am.
We didn’t end up leaving until 8 am partly because of Lil’s ankle.
3) We had two trucks that we were already
stuffed in. On the way there one of the
trucks’ hood flew up in the middle of the road and we had to rig it back
on. It started raining so the people in
the back of the truck had to rig a tarp over them and the windshield wipers
stopped working. So we stopped for an
hour to fix those. They only worked for
10 minutes and the person sitting in the front seat had to manually push the
wipers back and forth.
4) We finally got to El Carmen around 3 ish
pm and left with 9 more people and their stuff to put in the trucks.
5) We got to base of a trail around 7 pm
and it was starting to get dark.
6) We put on our mud boots, loaded our
packs on the 4 mules that were provided and set on our way on a 5 hour hike
through mud that if you miss stepped you would sink in to mud to your knees in
the dark with our headlamps on.
7) We arrived in Higerones at 1am after a
hike where the Lord strength was our strength.
The family we all were staying with had food ready for us – mostly rice,
of course – and we hit the hay – well the floor with my sleeping pad covered in
my mosquito net. J
The hike to
Higerones was the perfect visual for how we need God. As we were walking through the mud you would
definitely more than once miss step and be knee deep in mud that you could not
get out of on your own. You had to have
someone’s hand to help you get your foot unstuck. It’s just like our journey with the
Lord. We drown in our sin; we don’t see
any other way and can’t get out on our own.
That’s when God comes in. He
gives us his hand and helps us get out of our sin. He meets us where we are, stuck in the mud
and in the crap of life and uses His strength to pull us out of it. You just have to put your hand out and accept
His.
