Painful Liberation

I blog to you in a place that is beyond description. My fingers are sticking to the age old keyboard in the Internet cafe that looks alot like a run down hostel with computers in it. I am thankful for this place. A taste of the comfort of technology that I am currently on a fast from here in Panama. Things are going well here. God is showing me things about myself especially that I never EVER knew, and things about Himself that I need to know. Its amazing the things you learn when you are being stretched past your breaking point. Here is my account of the latest test that God brought me through and the most scared I have ever been in my life.

Excerpt from my scribbled journal:

¨6 hours later into the what was supposed to be a 3 hour drive, I was irritable to put it nicely. My friends would probably describe my state as more of a rage. This is actually a better depiction of the unbearable situation at hand. We were sardined into a tiny white van, one that was constantly on the verge of a breakdown, trapezing through the Darian jungle-we were informed later that it is the most dense jungle in the Western Hemisphere. Even more than the Amazon. How did I get here? Seems like yesterday I was looking out my window to view the beautiful Colorado landscape and now I am having a back and butt pain like never before as I moaned at the sweat that was rolling down my face. Headphones and the sweet sound of Brooke Fraser was the only thing keeping me sane. When the rickity van finally came to a halt at the ¨Happy Hostel¨I was thankful momentarily unknowing of what lay ahead of me. As I stumbled out of the cramped van, I landed in a puddle of mud and looked around to witness the most sketch excuse for a hostel that I could possibly imagine. No movie depicting life in a slum could have prepared me for the sight...and worse, the stench. Talk about bad dream. Shrugging, and past the point of caring, I caught eye contact with Sarah who was equally disgusted, not to mention car sick. Thank God for Dramamine. This look sent us into an eruption of delirious laughter knowing that there was no other emotion except tears that we could conjure up. As we walked single file through the mud into the slum/shack hotel we held our breath. Erin, Sarah, and I were handed a key attached to a tiny pool ball and directed to Room 7. No words can describe what we saw when we finally jingled our lock loose. We entered our room about the size of a common sized bathroom to find an even worse stench. There was a mattress covered with a sheet that had positively never been introduced to soap. Apparently two bigfoots straight from the depths of the jungle, covered in soot and their own feces had made love there only moments before our arrival. (Thank meg for that analogy). Erin, on the verge of tears, whipped out our rolled up 1/2 inch blue mattresses for camping and layed them over the bed. Thank god for the blue mats. I made the mistake of asking Matt if the situation was even sanitary, a comment that was not received well to say the least. It seemed like a perfectly logical question seeing that things looked as if STDs, AIDS, and lice were a guranteed assurance just from walking in the door. This jank place made pee-stained sheets from Motel 6 look like a 5 star luxury resort. Upon our surrender to the situation, we slept for only 4 hours before Cathy, our trusty translator, was rapping on our door. It was 4am and time to wake up. Thanks Cathy, not like we were asleep anyways seeing that the task was near impossible. Spooning in filth harldly provides any kind of rest. So we packed up yet again and re-entered the van of death. Tears filled my eyes as I took my place by the window to continue our journey. Another 2 hours in the van and we arrived at a ¨port¨ as they called it. I would call it a hell hole of a slum that you prolly never leave. 48 bug bites and 2 hours later and we were lugging our bags down a questionable ramp to load onto 2 very small canoe-boats. Only 4 hours later than planned. YWAM theme--flexibility. I grabbed an extra lifejacket to sit on, but that was quickly stolen from me. Comfort was not to be considered and was definitely not to be expected. So my butt was made acquainted with the plastic bench seat that was speckled with black and white paint. At least they tried as far as decoration goes. Fail. This so called ¨boat ride¨was an absolute DISASTER from the moment I stepped foot onto its shaky bow. I could all out cry just recalling the entire event. The boat I named ¨My own personal definition of hell on earth.¨ And yet there I was, setting out for the Pacific ocean with only a trolling motor and a silent Embero tribal man who knew zero English and was only vaguely familiar with our upcoming route. It wasnt 5 minutes before the rain started and my logical self wore only a tank top and shorts...no rain gear. For crying out loud, Ally, you are in the tropics during hurricane season. You´d think common sense would have graced me with a poncho. Hardly. Shivering incessantly, I looked around to find the Pacific waves growing in size. I death-gripped the side of the canoe, digging my fingernails in as hard as possible. Keep in mind...we are in a tiny boat, trekking through FREEZING rain, with a destination unknown, and only considered by our imaginations. As the waves crashed over the side of the boat, drenching me in a salty ice bath, hopelessness became my most prominent emotion. I literally was in fear for my life as the waves took our tiny canoe captive to their mighty power. Freezing, sore, exhausted, and nauseous, I started to cry to find Sarah with her arm around me reassuring me that things were going to be okay. Sarah is a liar. Things were not okay. But as if this situation could get any worse, I looked to see Boat #2 flagging us down. The unthinkable had happened. Their motor had broken down. Once again let me recap: middle of the Pacific ocean, braving massive waves, tiny boat, and now we are short a motor. I mean hell, just throw us some paddles and we will make it to Sambu in 2 weeks. Scratch that we will die of thirst seeing that we had no water, and no food. This is the point of no return. Coming full circle, we looped around to aid our stranded team mates. Quick fix and we would be on our way right? We should be so lucky. Side note, we only brought enough gas to get us there, and we were past halfway. Boat rocking with the waves, as the Embero tribal men performed surgery on canoe 2, I was joined in my nausea by the vast majority of my team. Also just to throw in an extra tid bit, we were in a constant race against time attempting to keep our own boat afloat seeing that we found a hole in the front bottom. We decided amidst the frantic water shoveling tha tthe motor was going to take time and sure...we had plenty. Anchors away people, we are legit stranded. As we watched our tribal chief, Tulio, chunk the metal anchor over the side of the boat, we kissed that thing goodbye as the ocean darkness enveloped its newest permanent resident. Turns out in order for an anchor to work properly, it must be attached by rope to the boat. Who knew. Typical though, we are again captive to the sea. In order to avoid tears and an all out panic attack breakdown, I took a nap snuggled under a tarp and wedged between some baggage. Next thing I knew we were making a pit stop at Pelican Island for a pee and puke break and to conserve gas. The island was named by Sarah after the massive amounts of Pelicans who found their nested homes on its rocky shore. I called it the Island of Desperation because at this point the Pelicans were more being considered for dinner. The girls took a group trip behind a rock, IE the bathroom, and there we squatted, bare butt and all, and totally without a care. Eventually we came to the consensus that the motor was unfixable. Shocker there, and obviously the only remedy was to combine the gas and TOW boat 2 behind boat with hole in hull. Brilliant. About 5 minutes into the towing extravaganza, the rope snapped. As if we expected anything but tragedy at this point. We reattached another unreliable rope and looked up to see the perfect storm approaching, waves growing, rain intensifying. This is when I absolutely hit rock bottom. I was convinced that I was going to die on September 24 on the Pacific ocean wearing my Think Theta shirt. Cripes. I gage rock bottom because I was actually mastermining some kind of plan to somehow SOS Betsy to send a plane to pick my happy tail up. I was over this. I wanted to go home. Assuming my smoke signals were unlikely to reach Texarkana, Texas and assuming that I had no means of creating smoke, I instead called out a desperate cry of help to the God that holds the sea in the palm of His hand. This knowledge should have brought more comfort than it did. Blinking away tears was a lost cause and I instead transistioned into an all out weep. The few of us on boat with hole began singing, screaming any worship song that we could thnk of both for reasons of self comfort and also, seeing that we were presumably doomed, we might as well make a grand exit, praising God amidst our storm. This is when the corporate group realized how many worship songs refrence the ocean or the waves. In order to keep some kind of peace, we switched up some lyrics just in case God was taking us literally at our words. ¨The mountains bow down and the sea will QUIET please God please...at the sound of your name¨etc. I tearfully watched as another 3 hours crept by and it looked as if we were making no progress but burning alot of gas. The 10mph speed limit thanks to the boat in tow was making our trip move at glacier pace. However, a few trillion prayers later and an extended amount of time went by and we caught a glimpse of the mouth of the river--a miracle according to the facial expression of our silent Embero boat driver. He claimed our destination was only 2-3 more hours away. PSH, time means nothing to these people. Either that or we measure it in different increments. Sarah, while trying to regain optimism, declared that although the rain was freezing on our skin, at least we had our 3rd degree sunburns to warm us up. Sadly, this was true. Bizzarely enough, near the equator the sun is just as powerful even when masked with torrential downpour and cloud cover. No one can claim this with as much painful honesty as Kristin. I glanced over to see her reflecting a ruby sunburn, but still as always...smiling. On the contrary to smiling, sitting next to her was Erin, who´s face looked more like she had just been informed that she was to be drug behind a truck by her feet and then dipped into a pool of acid. Had she been given a weapon I would have feared for the lives of those around her. But really I couldnt decide if I thought she was going to cry or scream. Maybe both, simultaneously. On the upside, I declared that if the Fark guerrillas did kidnap us in the jungle, it was more likely that they would hold us for ransom rather than kill us. Thats if we ever make it alive out of the canoe, which in my mind was highly doubtful. But alas, as we passed by a hut on the shore, the Embero men began a conversation that seemed to have a hopeful Spanish tone. I looked up an hour later to see a group of people motioning us to the bank of the river. Holy crap had we made it? 26 hours from departure and we had actually made it to Sambu. An infinite amount of emotions flooded my being, preceded with thankfulness, which sent me into an entire other form of hysterics. As we docked the canoe a topless woman straight from the cover of National Geographicc grabbed my probably 50lb bag and tossed it over her shoulder. She walked away babbling in another language insinuating that I should follow her. I just stared in astonishment and obeyed, following her bare footsteps into the depths of the jungle, the end of one ¨so called¨adventure, and a unique beginning to yet another one among the Embera tribes of Sambu.

God is doing big things here. Please know that I am loving it, even though that story had a negative tone to it. I learned more in that one day about the God who loves me than I have learned in 5 years in the states. I am excited to see how He continues to work. It has been hard and amazing all at the same time. Come God, come!

Please be in prayer for my team as we continue to embark on our adventure in Panama! We have 2 more weeks here and our time is FILLED to the brim. Pray for safety and that God would use us in mighty ways!!!! I love all of you more than you know.