Always an Adventure!

Great is the LORD and greatly to be praised:

The new church that has been established in our friend Simon's house continues to meet every other week, and they are doing so well with encouraging one another and persevering in the faith. Though we want to meet with them and have not yet been able to, we are excited that they continue to do this without any input from us!

Prayer Necessities:

1. Please pray for our upcoming women's evangelism conference that will be held in Ayuma in July or August. Ask the Lord for wisdom for us in knowing how to put this together, and ask that He would send women who want to learn His Word and obey it.

2. Pray for Nelly, Marina, and Agripina, the three women in Ayuma who are learning the stories we are teaching. Pray that they would be doers of His Word and not hearers only and that they would be willing to begin teaching the stories to others in their community.

3. Please pray for Xtreme Team members, Trent and Kay (pictured with their daughter Maya in the top left in the photo here, with their son Jack being held by the young man at the bottom right) and Adam and Jessica (pictured with their daughter Sophia at the bottom left), who are currently investigating new people groups in Peru. These couples are traveling together with their families by bus and boat deep into the jungles to meet with leaders of these tribes. Ask the Lord to guide them to people of peace and that He would give them wisdom to know whether they should work among these groups in the future.

Inquiring Minds Wanna Know:

Leah and I are preparing to leave tomorrow to make a one-week trip to Ayuma to work among the women there. We are now teaching stories about the New Testament church, and we are excited to see what the Lord will do in this village as we begin to teach them about the acts of the Holy Spirit!

We had intended for this trip to be longer, at least three weeks, but it has been complicated by our visa process, something that always seems to be something of a hassle. We will have to return to Sucre on April 7 in order to complete the last piece of paperwork required to receive our two-year visas. Hopefully, after this, we will be granted the visa that will allow us to remain here for the rest of our time in Bolivia. There's something else for you to pray for!

As the changing of our trip's timing illustrates, life here rarely goes according to our plans. It just confirms the Lord's words in Prov. 16:9:

"In his heart a man plans his course, but the LORD determines his steps."

I think the LORD illustrates this to us almost every time we go to Ayuma, but never more clearly than on our last trip. As I've often said, life is always an adventure in Bolivia. :)

Our last trip was our longest one yet to this community, a full two weeks and, by the end of it, I was definitely ready to return to Sucre. I was looking forward to my shower and my comfortable bed after two weeks of lukewarm sponge-baths and a straw mat to sleep on. We were due to leave on a Friday morning, and I had been looking forward to it for a week!

We had chosen to make the trip to Ayuma via public transportation because, during rainy season, it can be particularly nerve-wracking to drive our truck. Despite the fact that it's four-wheel-drive and has great tires, sometimes the deep mud on the roads and the high river waters are too much for any vehicle except the largest buses. So we hopped on a bus for the first three hours, followed by two minivans for another couple of hours, and finally a 1.5-hour walk to Ayuma. We figured the trip back would be slightly easier because we would have less food to carry.

Our first week in Ayuma was beautiful. It was almost unusually sunny, with no rain at all for five days. But the second week was exactly the opposite. By Wednesday, the sky was completely overcast, and there was daily rain that made the ground a muddy mess and the rivers treacherous to cross (I'm pictured here after we returned in the rain and hail from the market in a nearby town).

I kept hoping things would improve by Friday. There is a river between Ayuma and the main road that we would have to navigate, and I was worried about that. So we kept an eye on the sky, and every day of grayness just seemed to make the ground that much muddier.

By Thursday, there were overcast skies, but it did not rain all day, so I was hopeful that the river would be down by the following morning. We were due to leave at 6:00 am, and I had been counting down the hours for the previous few days. When we went to bed that night, there were about nine left.

I heard the rain begin at about 4:00 am on Friday morning, and I prayed for it to stop. And, after about an hour, it did, something that gave me renewed hope.

Well, we got up to pack at about 5:00 am and, when I went outside around 5:30, the sky was gray in every direction. It looked as though, once the rain started, it would rain forever.

At exactly 6:00 am, the rain began again, and I was nothing but angry. I began to complain to the LORD, "Why are You doing this to me? I have done everything You asked of me on this trip, and now all I want to do is go home to my shower and my bed. Is that really so much to ask?" He reminded me of the crucifixion story I had taught to Nelly earlier that week. You know, the part where Jesus, in the garden of Gethsemane, says, "Not my will but Yours be done." I hate it when the LORD does that to me. :)

But I was hearing none of it. I didn't WANT His will, I wanted my own. Knowing it would be miserable travel for both Leah and me and for our dog in the rain, we chose to remain inside our house until things calmed down. But, as I sat inside and stewed made frequent trips outside to glare at the gray sky, I couldn't imagine that the rain would ever stop. I began to wonder what it would be like to live in Ayuma forever. Um, yeah, I get a little dramatic when I'm angry. :)

A few hours later, our friend Piscinta came in with food and asked when we were leaving. We told her that we were trying to wait for the rain to stop, and she looked at us like we were crazy. She then told us that it wasn't raining that hard and that we could go whenever.

After investigating for ourselves, we decided to take her advice, and we left our little house in Ayuma at about 10:20. The rain had slowed to a sprinkle and, as we walked up the muddy path toward the main road, it stopped completely, and the sun eventually came out. Just making progress toward home made me happy, and I found myself thanking the LORD rather than complaining. I even stopped to take pictures of some dirt formations in the hills on the path out of Ayuma (pictured here).

We knew the river near the main road would be too dangerous for us to cross, but we knew there was a bridge about a half mile up-river from where we normally crossed. We took a different path that took us toward that bridge, and we only had to cross a small stream to get there. We were loaded down with all of our stuff, but we were happy to be going home!

As we were getting ready to cross the stream, with the bridge in sight about a quarter of a mile in front of us, we met two men who were crossing in the opposite direction and headed toward Ayuma. They asked us where we were going, and we happily told them Sucre. They looked at us with strange expressions and then asked, "Don't you know that there's a strike today? There's no transportation on the road."

Seeing our crestfallen looks must have been comical, but they took pity on us and told us we could possibly find a private vehicle that would give us a ride. There was nothing to do but press forward, so we walked on toward the main road.

Just like that, my previous happiness was gone, and I began to wonder why the Lord was doing this to us. We made it to the road and tried to flag down four or five vehicles, only to watch them wave their hands at us in a "there's no room" gesture. We had made that gesture ourselves many times to hopeful Quechua people standing on the side of the road, and I had done it simply because I didn't want to share my truck with someone I didn't know or to try to communicate in a very difficult language inside my own vehicle. Now, with the shoe on the other foot, I realized what a selfish jerk I had been in the name of my own comfort.

As we sat on the side of that road in the now blazing sunlight for about an hour, I felt so abandoned. I began to wonder why God had let us come this far, only to leave us on the muddy side of this gravel highway.

We finally decided to walk a half-mile back up the road to a little town, hoping to find a vehicle there. Once we got there, we found a man we had met previously and asked him to drive us to Potosi, a larger city about three hours away from where we were and about 2.5 hours away from Sucre. I was prepared to offer him every penny I had because, even if we had to spend the night in Potosi, we knew we could get hot water and a nice bed in one of the hotels there.

The normal procedure on this type of journey is to drive to a little town called Ventanilla, which is about halfway between where we were and Potosi. In Ventanilla, there is a constant supply of minivans that make the journey between Potosi and Ventanilla all day long for abou $1.50 per person. But our concern was that, with the strike, there would be no transportation from Ventanilla, and we would be stuck there.

So, when this man offered to drive us to Ventanill for about $20, I was getting ready to make a sizable counter-offer to get us to Potosi.

That's when a dump truck loaded with people drove up. We ran to ask the driver if he could take us toward Ventanilla. He agreed, and we climbed in the back of this dump truck and tried to make ourselves as comfortable as possible among the rocks, pickaxes, and gas tanks that lined the truck bed.

There was a Quechua couple in the truck bed with us, and we discovered that they were believers. I conversed with the wife in my broken Quechua for a bit and then contented myself with standing up to watch the surroundings pass us by as we drove. We made it to Ventanilla in about an hour.

As expected, when we arrived, there were none of the normal minivans lining the streets. It was almost shocking to see how deserted it looked, but we prepared ourselves to wait and try to flag down a passing vehicle. That's when the owners of the truck got out and asked us if we were going to Potosi. We said yes, and they said they were also going there and would be happy to drive us. Praise the Lord!

Just one problem: The sky was once again threatening rain.

We had not been going more than half an hour when the driver stopped and pulled out a large plastic tarp. We spread it over the four of us (well, five, counting Riley) and tried to make ourselves comfortable for the two-hour journey. It was not easy, though, as we were freezing, trying to avoid sitting in water, and sitting in an very uncomfortable position hunched under that tarp.

But the drivers made it to Potosi in record time, and they dropped us off just outside the bus station at 5:00. I've never been so excited to see that bus terminal in my life!

Leah, Riley, and I headed inside and quickly found the bus line that we had taken from Sucre, the one that would allow us to bring our dog with us... with the purchase of her own seat, of course. :) The sign told us the bus left at 6:00, so we shelled out the $6 that would allow the three of us to travel and headed downstairs to the restrooms and snack stores while we waited for the bus.

At about 5:30, we decided to check our tickets. When we did, we panicked. They said the bus was to leave at 5:15!

Leah ran upstairs to question the clerk at the bus station, who confirmed that our bus did leave at 5:15 (not 6:00, as advertised). We then had to buy a new set of tickets for a bus that left at 7:00. At that point, we decided to wait right by the bus terminal door so there was no way for us to miss this bus home.

We did make it onto the 7:00 bus, which made the 3-hour drive to Sucre in four hours. After getting our bags and our dog off the bus in our home city, we got a taxi and finally walked in the door to our house around 11:20. We made a trip that normally takes six hours in about thirteen, but we were so happy to be home!

So what did I learn from our latest adventure? Well, I'm still a spoiled brat who feels entitled to always get what she wants and expects the Lord to give it to her. I'm still an untrusting wretch who gets dramatic when she doesn't get her way. And He didn't during this trip, nor will He ever abandon me. For His Word tells me this:

"The LORD himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged." (Deut. 31:8)

Maybe one of these days I'll learn that lesson. Until then, I'm so glad He is patient with me.