My Lesson

I want to tell you what we did on Wednesday. It sounded like a great idea and would have been a great idea if the weather had cooperated. We heard about this water pipe that was in Waena (near Abeh) that you can hike up and then swim in the pool by the waterfall. So we got some people together and started the hike. We drove as far as we could and then walked the path to the riverbed, and up the riverbed to the pipe. The pipe was about shoulder width across and not TOO difficult to walk on in most spots. However, two factors made it difficult on the way up. The moss on the sides were slippery and there were places where the pipe was 10-15 feet off the ground. So you definitely don’t want to fall. The kids climbed it barefoot-Garth and I had on shoes. Garth had our heavy backpack and I was holding Cale. It took us about 40 minutes to climb up-there was a place where we had to cross over the river bed, but the water was low and we could cross on the rocks. When we got to the top, we swam and the kids jumped off rocks into the water, and after awhile we were all getting hungry and decided to eat. While we were eating we began to hear thunder. NOT A GOOD SIGN! The kids all started praying for the storm to pass, but very quickly it began to rain on us. Immediately we packed everything up and began the trek down. You can imagine it was much more difficult going down on a wet pipe. Now we added another factor to the difficulties-water. We all moved with very cautious steps, yet even though we were being very careful, almost all of us fell off at least once. Jodi, who grew up in Indonesia, was used to stuff like this and did not fall, and neither did her husband. I fell off three times. Garth and the kids all fell-Wyatt was the worst. He smacked his ankle really bad and fell off and hit his eye on a rock. He is quite bruised up and will definitely have a black eye. The river bed was no longer just nice rocks to walk on. Now there were places we had to walk through water. The rain did not stop-and the drops were hitting us hard. But, the kids did fantastic! They were not complaining. They just kept trekking. We could not have been any wetter. I wish I hadn’t put all of our dry clothes in the backpack because they got soaked. Everything was soaked. We couldn’t wait to get home, get warm and cleaned up. We had mud splattered all up our legs. What a sight we all were!
More important than all that yammering about our walk was the precious “God” moment I had during this whole ordeal. I had my sorong tied around me and Cale was in that for the walk down. He was soaked completely-I could have turned his shoes upside down and poured out water. His clothes, socks, hair…everything completely drenched. He was cold and hungry, and tired-and of course, wet. He had his hands over his ears because he doesn’t like thunder, and I had taken a large leaf to cover his head from the rain. Can you picture this? He was nestled in his “little cocoon” right up on my chest. Now, he could have been scared. His life was in my hands, (or feet, if you want to be technical.) He could have been freaking out-especially since I kept falling. He could have been complaining. Yet, you know what he did--------he fell asleep. And I thought, how amazing! He is so trusting of me, he feels so safe in my arms, that he isn’t going to stress out about the storm going on around him, he is just going to rest in the arms of his Mother. That is how God wants us to be with Him. He knows what is going on all around us, He already has a plan and a solution worked out, so we don’t need to freak. We just need to rest-He is in control.
So, all that to remind me of a simple truth that is so easy to forget.
Don’t stress-rest.
Love you
Rachel