We had a great visit to Leer, but now it is time to head home. It has rained this week, Wednesday night we had a terrific storm, so we are uncertain as to road conditions, but this is the middle of the rains and if we don't try we may be here a VERY long time.
Friday we loaded the car for the trip back. Since the sun was out in full force, we waited until the afternoon before leaving allowing time for the mud on the roads to dry as much as possible.While we waited, this young man decided to be creative -- surrounded by all the "play dough" he needed, he decided to make good use of it by building a mud motorcycle.
He would be going with us along with his mother, his younger sister and brother and his brand new baby brother. His mother is Mathew's sister-in-law.
They live "in the bush" around an even smaller town called Mayendit (Mah-yen-DEET). Her husband sent them, to Mathew's house several weeks ago to have the baby in town.
Piling into the car, we said our goodbyes and were off; however it was to be a short journey. Do you remember the place we were stuck overnight in the mud outside Leer? Well, that was our demise. We tried the top of the road this time but the ruts were too deep and the mire sucked us back down. We couldn't get out. We were only there a couple of hours before being towed out by a bus coming from Leer to drop people off. Once out, we return to Leer and Mathew's house for the night, it is too late to go on -- we will try again tomorrow.
Saturday morning, realizing we will need all the daylight we can get, we decide to leave early. Making it through the first mud pit (our nemesis) – it feels rather like the greatest race or something; you know there are obstacles, but you don’t know what they are or how many. So we move forward by faith, knowing that whatever happens, God is in control of our lives and circumstances. (Only we really would like to sleep in our own bed tonight!) We know people are praying for us – we texted prayer requests to folks in Kenya and we know they are praying!
At
one juncture it looked pretty grim. Just
as we decide we must turn back, along comes God’s answer. Two UN vehicles push by us only to get stuck in the muck ahead -- the same muck we were hesitant to go through. These guys have a couple of things we do not have. They are two vehicles traveling together. One takes point, making the other available to tow it out and they have a Nuer/English speaker with them so they can inquire about conditions ahead. Mathew’s sister-in-law doesn’t know English. So Jerry asked them if we could travel with them. We would have to keep up, but they agreed. (They didn’t know it, but they were an answer to prayer.) Following these two vehicles we were better able to navigate through the mire as we watched their vehicles skid and slide around.
Dropping off our passengers, we bid them farewell and push on, not wanting to fall too far behind our convoy.
After leaving Unity State we were forced to watch as our convoy drove off. Our car was overheating. Now what! We sat by the side of the road waiting for it to cool down.
Long story short – God is victorious and allows us to be as well.
Finally we saw God’s hand. We had let the engine cool down for an hour or more, night was fast approaching and envisioning a night in the car, we prayed for God’s protection, provision, and wisdom. This area is very insecure, there is no cell phone signal and we had seen many people with AK47s on the road earlier.
Continuing on, Jerry gradually speeds up and before you know it we are traveling at a good clip heading for Rumbek. The return trip of 13 hours was exhausting, (a regular five hour trip); but you never saw two happier people when we pulled into our gate in the pouring rain.
Thank you for praying for us. We know you do because we see God’s hand at work in our lives every single day. When you pray for us you partner with us, helping to spread the Gospel to the ends of the earth.