Just the other night, I loaded up my gear (it
all comes in a shoulder size pack!) and headed out with a church planting
pastor from a Nazarene church. His name is Santiago Coc. I had 4x4ed into a
small community with him late last year and we showed the Jesus movie in a
house where he had started a church. He had asked me then if we could show the
movie in the next village beyond where he had started another house church and
I had agreed. So on this particular night we were off to Las Papayas.
I picked him
up in Chisec and we drove on pavement for about 35 minutes. As we turned off
the road there were some people waiting there. 5 adults and 3 children piled into back of the
Pathfinder (It would have been quite rude not to offer them a ride- the next
vehicle going that way would have been the next day). We headed up the trail
and 45 minutes later we came to the end of the rough muddy road. I was looking
for the village, but I only saw a couple of houses. Satiago said to me “ No es
lejos hermano, no es lejos” (it’s not far brother, it’s not far). I guess that meant we were going to walk the
rest of the way, I thought to myself. I wasn’t really prepared for that. I
grabbed my gear wishing I had brought my rubber boots and headed down the trail
following Santiago and the family of 8. We met another brother at the end of
the road. He offered to carry my gear and I said to him in Spanish “ It’s not
far, I will be ok.” After 10 minutes of
walking I was beginning to wonder how far was “not far”. The trail began to
narrow and we headed up a steep incline. As the trail became a little more
difficult the Christian brother we had met at the end of the road offered again
to carry my bag and this time I gladly handed it over to him. I asked him how
far. He said “media hora, no mas” (no more than half an hour). Oh, I thought,
that’s not too bad. I will just enjoyed the hike, but I was already thinking
about trying to hike out on this goat trail in the dark.
I listened to
the howler monkeys as they began their evening calls and marvelled at the
beauty of God’s creation. I began to exchange a few words with one of the young
men in the family I was walking with. I often try to pick up a few Q’uek’chi words
and while hiking though the jungle I repeated them over and over with the hope
that they might stick. The word for mud is “sollul.” There was a lot of sollul!
40 minutes of
hard hiking and we came to a little outcropping overlooking a lush green
valley. On the side of this hill was the village of Las Papayas, about 60
families. Hanging in the tree where we had stopped was a short piece of 4”
steel pipe. The one brother picked up a rock and banged on the pipe. He was
summoning the people of the village to come to the meeting room for the movie.
I pulled out my king-sized white sheet and hung it on the wall of this dirt
floor meeting room which had a few crude benches and set up my projection
system. All wood construction in these
areas is done with a chainsaw or machete, so it is pretty rough. The people
starting trickling in and after a prayer, I shared the wonderful story of Jesus
in their native language through the medium of film.
After the 2
hour movie was finished, Santiago talked with a few people while I packed up
the gear. He told me later that one man had given his life to the Lord. We
began the long hike back to where the vehicle was parked and I was thankful for
the headlamp my son had given me for Christmas. It started to rain about half
way back and by the time we made it to vehicle I was soaked. I pulled off my
shirt, wrung it out and threw it in the back seat. We still had an hour of
4x4ing to get out to the main road and then another 35 minute drive to Chisec.
I arrived back at the mission sight about 11:15pm. Tomorrow night I am off to
Yalicoc to show the movie there. I
wonder what adventures await me?
Rocky
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