A True Missionary Experience

You will have to forgive that this is so long, but it was a long day! Last week, it was decided that we (Johnny, Samuel Caen and I) would visit two churches on Sunday that are so secluded that they have not been visited by missionaries, church counsel or anyone in several years! In truth, we would need the 4WD to get in there! We were asked to go, partly because we were trying to visit all of the churches in the consejo and partly because we had the 4WD. So the day started at 3 AM for the 5 hour trip. Two brothers from Nahuala would be joining us, but when people started arriving for our 4 AM departure, it ended up being a total of 12! (Three we picked up enroute, but that is beside the point). The trip would take 4-5 hours to get there and was on the coast side of the mountains we live in. About 3 hours into the trip, we stopped for "breakfast". Actually what happened was we stopped at a restaurant, brought in our own food and only ordered coffee! But the owner was gracious and they tipped her nicely. The reason for the quotation marks around the word "breakfast", was what we had to eat! It is called patin and is made up of beef and small, whole fish, about the size of minnows, and served on a banana leaf. It was also picante.

Thankfully, I got away without having to try it, but Johnny didn't!

We then proceeded to the first church, which was the hardest to get to. We understood the need for a 4WD when the highway turned into a smaller road, which turned into a track, which disappeared almost altogether!

At one point, the road was blocked within a village where we had to practically beg for permission to pass. Finally they moved the poles and we continued on.

To make a long story short, the road gave out, so we walked...

UP...

DOWN...

Over the river (they called it a river)...

And thru the woods! We walked about an hour from the truck to get to the church.

We were the service for the morning and two of our party were preachers that could speak Quiche. Johnny and I understood little of the service, but I was asked to play the keyboard and Johnny was asked to sing!!! He always said he was part of the "joyful noise" section of the choir at home, but did a great job singing with all of the group.

As Johnny said, "What went up, must go down", so as we returned to the truck, we realized how much of the walk in had been downhill. Upon arriving at the truch, we were thankful to be back on wheels again and I was assured that at the next church, the road went all the way to the door! We had to use 4WD to get to it, but the road did indeed end at the church door. We were two hours late for that service, so we only held them over another hour with our portion of the service! Due to a miscommunication, they had expected us for lunch, but served us supper instead! This put us after dark on some foggy mountain roads going home, but we arrived back at the Camp around 9:30 PM. We were exhausted, but jubilant that we survived the day!

Thank you for your support in allowing us to minister to these two churches. We are recuperating today, but wouldn't have missed it for the world! Wish you could have been there with us!

Love to you all!

Maria

jcoker@caminternational.org