To the tune of "Everybody's got a Waterbuffalo"

It has been almost a week since I came back from outreach...I meant to write sooner but the frenzy of the birthroom, assignments, a small bout with sickness, now painting of the prenatal room, planning a mural for the prenatal room (!), learning in general and a few sleepless nights have kept me on my toes. It has been a week of missing though; I can’t describe how alive and blessed I was the whole 16hrs in the back of that little pickup truck. Ah God, are you sure you don’t want to call me right now to live in a little stilted hut in the mountains and maybe just one little water buffalo? I would go without before my heart had a chance to beat!It all started at 3:30am. Jordan and I (fellow midwife in training and adventurer) quickly woke up rather quickly and stumbled about till we met Mordegai outside our gate and scrabbled into the back of his tiny red Suzuki pick-up and started out in the dark. By the time we got on the highway out of the city there were 6 of us in the back, Chad, Tim, Manny and his son Alex plus Jordan and I. Those three are all married to students of Newlife and go on as many outreaches to the boonies as possible in a vain attempt to escape the controlling female hormones which surround the birthroom. Jordan and I were more than ready for an escape too! The bales of used clothes we were taking to these remote villages cushioned the cab bed, but we didn’t have to worry about bad roads for awhile. That “while” hadn’t even come before we had our first bout of excitement. Our road had been snaking through the banana plantations for awhile and we had arrived just in time to share the road with the little mopeds whose job it was to empty big containers of pesticide onto the trees....and onto us. We all sat with our mouths covered and our eyes squinted, thoughts of my Grade 11 Environmental Science class ran my head especially what I remembered of Rachel Carson’s “Silent Spring.” We slowly to breathe again, it was too soon. I am filled with a strange roaring noise and in the same instant look over at Tim, who begins a loud exclamation as his eyes turn upward. I duck and look as a small plane roars about thirty feet directly over our heads- from about 12 different openings spaced along the wings a white cloak of sticky powder rains down on us! Mordegai yells from the front about a tarp under the seat and within a few seconds we are all huddled under a blue canopy. A few seconds late; we all cough quietly and dare not open our eyes. When we do look we notice the windshield- which is almost opaque- Mordegai pulled over to give the plane a head start and to wipe of the window a bit. It was a very unique and uncalled for experience; I still plan on having fully limbed children!Once we got off the road I was in my element, the small eroded roads quickly gave us a healthy appreciation for the bales of clothes. Water buffalo’s were scattered among the stilted houses and waving children. Our little truck groaned through some muddy spots but handled the road very well we got to our first river and though wide- it was shallow and we ploughed through without trouble. The next river however was not the same story- though narrow was deep and had quite a steep embankment to get through to the other side. Needless to say we didn’t make it. As we sputtered to a stop Mordegai yells “Push!” but it is a bit late- though we all eagerly (at least on my side ) jump into the river and start heaving the little truck up the bank. It will not be moved. The water comes up to my mid thighs. When it is obvious forward is not an option we begin to push backwards to the other side. It was hard to get footing in the sandy river bed but somehow we managed to get it high and dry at its starting place. The engine was flooded. The little red machine refused to start at first and after it did Mordegai pronounced the clutch to be having bad problems. Turn around? Of course not!!!!!We drove over a dried out section of the river bed to a better place to ford and after that successful event, made a way through the bush back to the road.The rest of the trip was uphill. Our vehicle, already old and abused had lost much of its power in the river incident and we found ourselves not only walking up the hills- but pushing the lovely beast before us. Ahh I was at home! The sun beat down and the mud was cool between my bare toes, the mud cooled me almost to my knee caps actually. On either side of the road there was untamed bush- green and wild, rolling into darker shades and finally to blue mountains which met the sky. When we did pass villages the stilted precariously placed dwellings did give the appearance of frailty, though truly they were all “houses of straw.” They just belonged, as did the people, wonderfully unexplained and completely unexplainable. And I belonged behind that red truck. Later on the return trip Chad turned to me and stated “You were made for this weren’t you? Look at you, your face is just radiating Joy!” “Yes” I nodded, “Every time we go over a bump and I look out at the wilds we are in or I get up to my knees in mud it’s God scooping blessing on me like a spoon full of rice, here you go....oh and here you go again!” That is the abundance God wants to give me...a taste that is. But what a taste!Oh my goodness and the story isn’t even over yet...our truck got us to the end of the road and then we followed the trail on foot, down the mountain and over the cable bridge over the river to a small village where we delivered medicine and the clothes and sandals we had brought- it was a big party for such a small help, but it did take all of us to get the truck all that way! By the time we made it to the village it was about 1:30pm, we had left Davao around 4am. We met a woman there who had been carried out up the mountain 3 months before on her deathbed. God spared her life through a series of miracles and she was back in her village slowly discovering Him. I was so privileged to meet the Christians there and see how the people responded to Mordegai, a true missionary; he spoke their language fluently and for years had learnt these mountains through the friendships of individual families. They love him!The trip back was much less eventful, after a vigorous hike up the mountain to the truck we finally enjoyed some downhill. Till we met the coal tar gravity and our now intimate knowledge of the mud holes guaranteed us a stuck-less ride. We were almost being hit by a truck on the highway and our rears cried for lack of padding but the return trip went well.