With the love of Jesus I have conquered a host of fears and insecurities on this trip. I have used outhouses, stepped in ants got them on me and didn’t loose my mind, spoken to groups of strangers , prayed aloud in large groups, spoken Spatalian in front of people but nothing could have prepared me for the car ride home today.
The ten of us rode in the six seater van through the rolling hills, winding roads and lush green farmland that is Transylvania. We passed cows and sheep, horse drawn carriages and farmers. We had given our testimonies and prayed for people at a local village church and the evening was rapidly loosing light. The storm clouds we had seen in the distance were now over head and it was sprinkling through the open windows of the van. Then Sandoo, our host and driver, honked the car and stopped, he turned off the main road and began driving down a steep hill on a narrow path toward a farm. At the bottom of the hill the car stalled out and we thought he hit a dog, but once the car was turned around we saw it was alive and well. Sandoo got out of the car and walked up to the farm house leaving Anna in the front seat, Me Rebekah, Matt and Lili in the middle 2 seats and Jessica, Cierra, Rachel and Sydney in the back 2 seats. The car quickly became an oven with only my window half open. Anna opened her door and the dog began to bark, Anna barked back. Before too long several other dogs joined the first at barking at the car, it was like a cujo convention, so we sat in the hot car waiting for Sandoo. A man came up to the car and began tying the dogs who were so adamantly opposed to our presence. He had a tattered baseball cap on so Anna gave him the new one she was wearing. A short time later Sandoo appeared with 8 bottles of fresh unpasturized milk. He placed them in the car and made a muddled joke about a duck. We sat awhile longer waiting while he chatted with the farmer. We took the opportunity to roll the windows down and made hints to the fact that we wanted to go home and it was late. Lili was the first to see it “hey guys” she said “there really is a duck” , an assistant handed it to the farmer who passed it though the car window to Sandoo. Some people wanted to pet it but most of us were adamant that we did not want it in the car.
It sat in the middle of the front seats as we drove away, but then it worked its way between Sandoos legs under the steering wheel, we cracked jokes, took pictures and made videos. Matt said he wanted to be the one to kill it, and then while he was still driving Sandoo reached down grabbed the duck by the wings and thrust it into the middle seats. Matt began to scream and tried to climb into the back seat, face contorted in horror. I screamed in sheer terror and then Sandoo dropped the duck. The poor scared thing darted under my floor length skirt. I continued to screaming, and then heard someone say to be quiet, fearing that my screaming would cause Sandoo to crash (his driving had already become erratic, but I would later discover it was because he was laughing so hard), I covered my mouth and continued to scream with tears running in streams down my face, the duck was in my skirt. After composing himself a little Matt scarily tried to get the duck outfrom in front of our seat , Rebekah and I were beside ourselves with terror. Matt finally managed to grab it and pass it to the back seats where the girls were more than happy to have the duck’s company. The car was rolling with laughter, the videos and jokes resumed.
