Into the Jungle

The morning of our journey we all piled into vans to travel to the base of the mountain. Pastor had rounded up kids to help us carry our things. From the look of all the mountains surrounding us, I knew I could not carry my backpack, so I made sure that someone had it. A few kids carried generators and other heavy equipment. Unreal. The weather was perfect. It was drizzling and cool. We started the trek and I hung back to take a pic. Then caught up, then took another pic as we started our ascent. Doing these put me at the end of the line. We had about 50 in our group. As we started up what my friend later named 'Death Mountain', I was like 'Oh boy'. Straight up. No nice winding trail. Straight up. I had three small bags around my shoulders which became heavier and heavier. Two great guys from Gidan Bege, Victor and Yats, stayed with me, encouraging me and helping me. Then Pastor Matthias came and literally pulled me up the mountain, stopping patiently when I could not breathe:) And then pulling some more. Eventually 2 of the bags were taken from me, leaving me only with my water and my wet clothes to lug up the mountain.

When I rested, I would turn around and it was such an amazing sight. We were above the clouds! Mountains everywhere. Rainforest surrounded us. God provided rain and clouds. If it would have been hot and sunny- we all would have been in trouble. Although it was so tough we 4 enjoyed each others company. I say 'tough'- but the men were barely breaking a sweat! Even Pastor, who was literally pulling me up the mountain! Eventually, a couple others had slowed down from exhaustion and the 6 of us continued on. Finally we got to the top of the mountain. What goes up must come down. The rain had caused the mud to be slippery, so this was quite a challenge. Also, I had opted to wear my Teva sandals and not my boots bc they are so heavy and not so comfortable. The sandals are open toed, so bc of the slippery surface, going down a mountain, my feet kept sliding right out of my shoes! Eventually I just took them off and went barefoot, because otherwise I was going to twist my ankles.

I fell many times, yet never hurt myself! Amazingly, my feet did not even get scratched. I know why. At the beginning of the climb, God reminded me of the verse "For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways; they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone."Ps 91:11&12. I was assured that I would sustain injury and I did not. Even though I fell many times. The people with me could not understand why I did not break a bone or have a dislocation, they said, bc they were seeing how I was falling and slipping. Yats even took pics of me falling :) We all laughed alot and really had a great time.

The descent was really into the jungle! It was so incredible. There was one spot where we could see the mountains of Cameroon. Our last 45 min or so was travelled in the dark with flashlights- again, I did not get hurt! We arrived to the camp to the cheers of all who had made it before us. My friend ran up to me and gave me a big hug. She had been worried bc we were travelling in the dark. The whole journey was only a little over 3 hrs.

We spent 4 days camped in one village. We slept in tents, surrounded by mountains and palm trees. During the days we split up into 14 teams. My team conducted the clinic and the other teams trekked to other villages in the mountains to share the Gospel. At night we showed the Jesus Film. It was an incredible week, one that I will never forget.