Experiences

The snake still striking with its head seperated from its body


The snake we killed


Thomas and I riding the bike


Some of the church members I preached to

The last couple of weeks post clinic have been filled adventure and excitement. The first weekend that we were home after clinic I went to the little church at Hierbas Buenas with Thomas and Anita which is 3 km away from our front door. The first excitement of the day started before we even left for church. We have 3 somewhat useable bikes that have many problems. That morning one of the tires had gone flat on one of the bikes so I pumped it up to see if it just needed air. Right before we left I pumped it a little more so that I would have enough air to get to church. However right I pumped it the wheel wouldn’t turn which I though was strange. Just then I looked down just in time to see the bike inner tube expanding and then BANG! The tube exploded and I was left bikeless. The best part of the explosion was the reaction of Jenni. She screamed when the tube exploded because she saw black smoke come from it and she thought that it had hit my leg. Because we only had two bikes left Thomas decided to try and ride tandem to church. It was a little squished but we made it. After arriving at church I thought the excitement was over but then one of the leaders asked me three minutes before the service was supposed to begin to preach. Normally, this wouldn’t have been much of a problem until I realized that I didn’t have a translator which meant I would have to preach in Spanish. My mind screamed NOOOOOOO but then I realized that if I was going to preach it would have to be up to God because I didn’t have a sermon ready in English let alone Spanish. So I sent up a little prayer asking for help and told the leader that I would preach. I quickly scanned through my bible for a topic and settled on talking about my two favorite passages in the Bible: Isaiah 40:28-31 and Phillippians 4:6-7. Although it was a very simple sermon consisting of reading the passages and explaining what they meant in my life I know that God blessed regardless of my basic Spanish. This experience really showed my how far God has brought me this year. At the beginning of the year if you would have asked me to preach in English I would have gotten all nervous and my mouth would have gone dry just thinking about getting up in front of people and sharing. But God has throughout this year worked on me and given me experiences to slowly get over this fear. Granted I still get nervous but I know that I don’t have to worry because God is in control.
Another interesting experience that I had just recently had to do with working in the lemon field. This past week we were clearing the final section at the back of the lemon field. After we cut down all of the underbrush down with machetes I went through with the chainsaw and cut up the logs so that we could put them in piles and burn them. I had been using the chainsaw for a couple of hours and I hit what I like to call a “zone” where your mind focuses in on what you are doing and you forget about everything around you. I had hit this zone and completely forgot that the piece of equipment I was using was actually extremely dangerous. It was at this moment that I was cutting a little tree out from under a fallen log. For those of you who understand chainsaw lingo I was backcutting the little tree so that when it fell I could move the chainsaw out of the way before the log on top of it collapsed. However I failed to calculate that my knee was in the wrong place for a backcut. As I started to cut the little tree the saw suddenly caught and kicked back right into my knee. Everything seemed to go into slow motion as I saw the saw hit my pants and slice them into ribbons. I felt a sharp pain and my first thought was “now I’ve done it”. I didn’t know how bad the cut was but as I lifted my pant leg I saw that although one part was a little deep it was little more than a scrape. Relieved, I thanked God for protecting me and I know have a lot more respect for chainsaws.
The last experience I had this past week was seeing my first big poisonous snake in Peru. It slithered right past me and when I saw it I yelled for someone to bring a machete. Everyone came running out of the house with machetes in hand. We observed the snake for about 30 seconds and then promptly chopped off its head. It still continued to strike at us even though it didn't have a body which was kind of scary. I was really excited to see my first snake and now I can say that I have stared a 100% amazonian snake in the eyes and not been scared! Thanks for your continued prayers for safety. I can tell you from experience that they work!