It was dark when we arrived at Pastor Cecil’s house last night, and we really didn’t appreciate the beauty of our location until we woke up the next morning. We were in this small village that was almost entirely surrounded by tall hills, covered almost entirely by the bright yellow stalks of corn. Since this is a hilly area, they are forced to make use of the land they have and that means planing on the side of mountains! We have constantly been amazed at the thought of carrying the seed up the side of these hills, planting it on the sloped ground and then carrying the crops back down again when they are ready. Quite the job! But it is a beautiful area and very serene.
The view of last night's dwelling from above. Todd and Mike are pictured.
We were invited to Pastor Cecil’s house for tea at 7:00am, so we got up and going and joined the others at the pastor’s home where we were again offered omelettes, bread, chicken, soup and more along with our spicy tea. When we had finished we loaded our bags into the Suzuki and somewhat reluctantly loaded ourselves. Little did we know how long a day this would end up being....
The mountain gardens beside the village of Kwamkole.
Within 15 minutes of leaving Kwamkole we encountered an accident on the road. A man on a motorcycle had crashed somehow. We found his bike on one side of the road and the man was huddled on the other side of the road with a growing audience around him. We got out to see what we could do and saw right away that it was not good. He had a puncture in one forearm the size of a nickel, a dislocated shoulder, and most of the skin on his right calf had been cut and was hanging loose. The man was almost in shock. Todd had a first aid kit in his bag and found a bandage to cover the hole in his arm, but didn’t have anything that could help his leg. He decided to grab one of his undershirts to wrap around the man’s leg. He tried to pull the skin back in place, and then taped the shirt around his calf. He then gave him some pain reliever to make him more comfortable. We were concerned about how he was going to get to a hospital, and didn’t think he should wait for a lorry or other passing vehicle, and felt he should definitely NOT ride a motorcycle (yes, someone even suggested that!). So we put him in the front seat of our car and decided to take him to the nearest hospital ourselves. We got the impression that it would be on the way to where we were going, so thought that was good too.
But it was a painful ride. We were traveling on really bad roads and now we had man riding with us who had a dislocated shoulder. Every time Jeremiah went over a bump a bit too roughly we would hear a grunt from the front seat. It took us almost an hour to reach the main road – something we had covered in less than 30 minutes the night before! After over two hours in the car we again asked Jeremiah how much farther to the hospital and he said it was still a long way. We encouraged him to find something closer, because we were concerned about the man’s injury and the amount of blood he had lost already. When we reached the next big town we found that they had a hospital there and rushed him to it. They got him in fairly quickly and Todd gave the Doctor the run-down on what had happened and what he had done. She said it was good that we had come here and not tried to make it to another hospital. He had been in the car for just over three hours, and it was a HARD three hours on those roads. We were just glad to hand him over to someone who could do something to help him after that amount of time. We pray that he will recover quickly and be able to return to his wife and four children. The whole event kind-of changed our outlook on riding motorcycles – especially in the mountains!
From the hospital we drove up the road another 45 minutes to visit a small congregation. We met in one of the member’s homes first, and when we had received a sufficient number there, walked to the place where they were building a new church. It was just a skeleton of sticks and poles, but it was taking shape. We prayed for the Lord’s work through the members of the congregation, said a few short words, sang a hymn, and then headed back down the road again, the way we had come. By this time it was noon, and we still had three more congregations to visit. We stopped back at the hospital to check on the man we had dropped off, but found nothing out. Then we began the long trip higher into the mountains surrounding Kwamkole.
The first church that we visited. As you can see it is under construction.
You wouldn’t believe the trip if I told you. We drove through a national forest on winding switchback roads, crossed rivers, passed tea farms, villages, burning maze fields, and traversed roads that were not made for four-wheeled vehicles to travel. We probably took 10 years off the life of that poor Suzuki through the course of the day! As it began to grow dark we finally arrived at our destination high in the hills and overlooking beautiful fields of tea and corn. Here we were greeted by a large number of people singing and waving branches for our arrival which was now 6 hours past. We walked past a large pole building with a canvas cover that was serving as the existing church and down a hill to a place where they were building a new brick church building. We participated in the dedication of this building, offered prayers, and sang more hymns. We had been invited for supper, but because of the approaching night, they packed us supper and sent it with us. It was discouraging to spend so little time here, especially after such a long drive, but we didn’t have any choice. Our schedule had been planned based on the travel time by motorbike and that did not match the time that it took by car on these roads.
The second church was also under construction, but with brick instead of wood.
Now we had to begin the long return trip back down the mountain and into Tanga. It was a long four hour ride with six of us in this small five passenger vehicle. It was quite a relief when we finally pulled off the dirt road and onto blacktop for the last hour of our trip, but we were all pretty much done in by that time. We had been on the road – and bad roads at that – for over 12 hours today and we were all eager to get out! It was after 10:00pm when we pulled into the Tanga Hotel in Tanga and checked in for the night.
We were all pretty well exhausted, and eager to get to bed so we could get up and going for the conference in the morning.
In His service,
Nathanael
“And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.” – John 17:3
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