Why I don't drive a car in Jb.

This morning, when I woke up, rather than the day getting brighter, as it usually does, this morning kept getting darker and darker and darker. So I hurried up and got myself ready to make the long commute to my office (about a 2 minute walk!), before the heavens let loose. I made sure to grab my beautiful new umbrella on the way out the door... and boy I was glad I did!

Just as I got to the office, the thunder and lightening shook the sky, and an amazing amount of water began falling from the sky.

Poor Matt and Pam were supposed to be leaving for Nairobi and then their trip to the US this morning... at the height of the rain storm! We have one gate in and out of the compound. However, that gate happens to be at the end of a driveway, down which an amazing amount of sand and garbage flood down with the rains. Which means that the gate gets completely stuck in mud, and we can't get out the gate without a whole lot of digging.

So dear James went out there in the rain and started digging. I don't think he got very far, as the river kept streaming in whilst he tried to dig it all out. In the meantime, Matt and Pam were itching to go. They were NOT going to miss their flight today, even though around these parts, no one moves in the rain, so I was doubting the folks from the airplane check-in were even at the airport yet!

But they were determined to get out... so determined, that Matt took the gate right off its hinges!

This is a picture of the aftermath of the storm, taken a few hours later when things had had a chance to dry out a bit!

Unfortunately, one of my colleagues drives a little car around here. This is why I don't drive a car:

Poor guy just sat in his car and spun and spun and spun, and got himself completely stuck. He ended up rather high centered - by the time the rescue mission got organized, his tires were barely even reaching the mud!

Thankfully, the posse came to the rescue again! Not only are these guys amazing at rescuing stolen phones, they're also good at getting cars out of the mud!


It's quite something to see how everything here becomes a communal effort - even if someone has nothing to contribute to the effort, one of our own was having a problem, so everyone had to go out and watch and stand together as those who had a solution tried to work it all out. They just had to "be" there, even if they didn't want to get their hands dirty!

I was there for a few minutes... except we had to leave because we had a meeting planned with one of the big wigs in the Ministry of Ed.! I told the guys that they would have to come and dig me and Jackie out next - I wasn't sure what the state of the roads were going to be like! But the truck already had his wheels locked into 4WD, so we were probably going to be ok, and wouldn't even have to step out of the truck into the mud in our finery to lock the hubs. And we were in our finery - you don't go visiting the big people in the Ministry in a t-shirt and wrinkly skirt!

Anyways, we made it back and forth to the Ministry without getting ourselves stuck in the mud, which was quite a feat! The meeting we had was even quite a useful one. It was amazing that the guy we wanted to see what actually there - he hadn't been there all day, but then came just in time for us not to leave before meeting with him!

I'm always amazed at how God brings these things together - in fact, had I made it through the mud to get to the village that we were planning to go to last week, I wouldn't be here this week, and I'd not have had that meeting with the big wig in the Ministry, nor would a lot of other things that had to happen this week have happened. Plus, I heard news from Adelino that the very truck we were trying to get on to get to the village ended up taking 5 whole days to get to the village a few kilometers up the road from where we would have been dropped. 5 days. I would have been sleeping on the ground, under the truck, eating wild fruits from the forest, peanut butter and mouldy bread for 5 days had we ended up on that truck! Thank you, Lord, that that driver was convicted not to take us! God really does work all things out for our own good!

But I'm still thankful for the big 4WD Hilux that I can drive here!