The Great Escape

This story took place back in December 2004, but I wanted to get it in writing so I wouldn't forget.

It was still raining as it had been most the night when I put the neighbor's plastic table cloth around my shoulders and began the walk toward town. The mud slipped beneath my feet and oozed between my toes and I soon found there was more sure footing in the small rivulets that flowed down the middle of the road, than on the high ground.

I was on my way to a meeting in Guatemala, but first I had to get out of our village so I could be driven to the airport. The normally small stream that separates Ita Angu'a from Yuty had overflowed and flooded the only road leading to town. My friend Dan Reich was to meet me on the other side of the flooded area and then drive me the rest of the way into town and then on to Asuncion.

As I stumbled along, one of our neighbor's boys came riding up on a horse and relieved me of my suitcase and walked with me to the flooded area. As we came over a rise, there was Dan with some Paraguayan friends of ours walking up the hill toward me. Our friends continued on their way to their homes in the villages I had left behind, and Dan and I turned around and headed back to his car.

The Paraguayans had shown Dan that the best way to get through the flooded area was to walk perpendicularly to the road out into the marsh land where the water became much more shallow and then walk parallel with the road until the flooded area had been passed.

The only way to walk in the marsh was by stepping on top of the clumps of grass that were just above water level. Between the clumps of grass flowed two and a half feet of slow draining muddy water. More than once we lost our footing and slipped thigh deep in to the black goo.

Finally totally soaked and covered in mud, we made it back to Dan's car. After a quick shower and change of clothes at Dan's house, we were on our way to Asuncion.

The following day I was on a jet eating preprepared meals wrapped in cellophane and little wedges of cheese wrapped in foil from somewhere in Europe. And for the next three days I would be sitting in a classroom watching powerpoint presentations and listening to mission leaders from Latin America share their vision for the future of missions. After this
brief visit it was back to Ita Angu'a and the mud.

Often the life of a missionary is full of seeming dichotomies, where we find ourselves in simple conditions one moment and then in more modern ones the next. I say "seeming dichotomy" because there really is no dichotomy in a Christian's life. Everything we do has the same purpose no matter where or what the circumstances: It is to glorify Him.