In my last episode, we were up at a little village in Karen State. After I wrote my last article, we went and had worship in many of the villager’s houses. They are the sweetest people you can imagine. Most of them really want a better life. Even the devil possessed guy listens intently while the pastor preaches. He seemed like he was really searching for something better. He asked us all to come to his house to pray for his family, which we did. We really enjoyed our time there, but Sunday morning came, and it was time to leave.

Right before we left, the family that we had stayed with told Ben that if Roy and I would stay in this area, they would send their daughter to live with us and help us. She is about 9 years old, and one of the cutest and most intelligent looking children I have seen. I immediately wanted to stay!

We then grabbed all our stuff, and hiked back to the truck. It was still sitting there, looking almost inviting after those nights on the hard floor! There was less stuff to put into the truck this time, since we ate most of the food, and the TV had been delivered to the guy who ordered it.  (they have to run a generator to watch video’s out there) There was also one less person in the truck, so we were really feeling great, until we found out that we didn’t have all the padding that we had on the way in. (I was fine, since I was sitting on our bedding, but everyone else’s backsides were suffering. I got back in my position of honor in the middle of the truck, facing backwards against the cab. The two other ladies were on my right, and Roy, Jason, Travis and Tremaynne were sitting along the side of the truck to my left, and Ben was sitting in the middle on top of my feet. We were so cozy! All the others were crammed in anywhere they could fit. The only passenger that was new was a man who had 4 stitches in his foot, and his whole foot had gotten infected, so he was going out for medical care, I presume. So off we went, a happy bunch feeling like we had accomplished what we set out to do.

About an hour later, we were going down a steep hill with really deep ruts in it, when the truck started tipping to one side. That was ok, since it had tipped many times before, and it was not a big problem. But, this time “the forward motion combined with the drivers wheels falling into the rut and the passengers wheels climbing the bank in slow motion rolled the truck over onto its side”. (that was Roy explaining it, I did not know what happened) All I knew was that one minute we were tipping, and the next minute I was landing on my head and arm on the ground, and instead of sitting on a nice firm truck, I was being drug down the road with all the passengers and luggage sitting on top of me. Roy says that I didn’t slide any more than 10 feet, but that is a long ways when you are under a truck with all the baggage and people on top of you!(since the truck was sliding, all the passengers and luggage were kind of dumped in the last place they could land without sliding under the cab….on top of me) I am not saying that the truck was squishing me, but it was all dark, and the truck was certainly not under me anymore! I only had time to wonder if I was going to die like this, when everything came to a halt. Then, I tried to assess if I were still all in one piece. I could feel one leg sticking up with something very heavy on it. It was still all dark, but I could see a glimmer of light, oh joy! Then, one by one, those heavy objects untangled themselves and got off of me, and someone finally located the body that went with that stray leg, and pulled me up out of my den. I stood up and tried to assess whether or not I was still alive and why my arm was hurting so bad, when Roy came racing over and told me that I had to come and check Arthur, the lay pastor that was with us, since I was the only one with medical training in the group. All I could think of was getting a picture first, so I took one picture with my hands shaking, but my great camera made it turn out OK anyway. Then, I walked past the truck and down to where Arthur was sitting on the ground moaning. He had an obvious compound fracture of the wrist. I had one of the boys run and get my medical bag out of the wreckage, and found that all I had was tape and an ace bandage, plus, my arm hurt too bad to use it. So, I instructed Ben how to reduce the fracture, and found a stick in the jungle and splinted his arm with that. The poor guy was in an awful lot of pain. Then Ben insisted that I take care of myself, so I had him use his loungy to make me a sling for my poor abused arm.

While all this was going on, the other 17 people were getting the truck back onto its feet where any self respecting truck ought to be. They gathered up the windshield, and the bumper, and all the other stuff that had fallen off, and put them into the back of the truck. They then accessed the damage. Most of the oil that belongs in a good truck was on the ground. The driver’s door was smashed in, the roof of the cab where my computer was strapped was dented in, the rear tail light was smashed, and of course the windshield had flown off and landed on a rock, but had refused to break! (Amazingly, my computer was unhurt) So, we found ourselves at least 6 hours drive from civilization, with a truck with little or no oil, and one patient with a broken arm, me with head and face injuries and that crazy shoulder injury. But, that was all! As we stood and looked at the situation, we could not help but feel that Angels were all around. Roy was not on the truck when it rolled because he jumped off when it started tipping. He could not believe that no one had fallen under the truck and gotten squished. If we had been sitting like we were when we came in on Thursday, it would have been much worse, with probable smashed and broken legs. Even the man with the infected foot was able to simply sit down on the bank while the truck was rolling over, and was found sitting there calmly when it was all said and done.

The only problem was how to get out. NOBODY wanted to get back into the truck for some reason, but we also did not exactly feel up to walking that far! So, finally it was decided that those who were hurt were probably expendable anyway, so they might as well get in along with their spry caretakers, while everyone else chose to walk for a while. (It is easy to walk faster than the truck on a road like that) We figured that we would drive as far as the truck would go on that little bit of remaining oil, and then we would all have to walk.

About half way out, there is a little rest hut beside the road. When we got there, we found a big group of outfitters with pickups that look like they were supposed to be in one of those monster truck mud races. They were only too happy to help us, so they decided to take us out, while our truck limped along behind. We made the rest of that trip in record time. All the unhurt passengers complained that they got more injuries from that ride than from the roll over! Poor Arthur was in so much pain from the bouncing that he was actually delirious. The man was not really paying attention to our discomfort; he was just focused on getting us to the hospital……FAST!

Well, we did get to the hospital, and nobody died in the effort, to our great relief and eternal gratitude. I saw the x-rays, and Ben had done a really good job of getting Arthur’s bone back into place. I was really happy about it since I knew that if it were not in place, his hand would be pretty messed up by the time we got through with the rodeo ride. My shoulder was not broken of course, but it is torn up a bit. I have a nice green sling to keep it in, and it is perfectly happy as long as nobody comes within 10 feet of it! GRRRR! My head is already feeling better, and the bruises will go away, so we have a lot to be thankful for.

If anyone wants to have pity on a poor lay pastor, his hospital bill came to 1400 baht, which is about $45.00. That is not much to us, but that is a lot to them. (that is about 3 months wages) He does have to go back to get it casted in a couple of days, and we estimate that it will end up costing about $100 total.

When the boys got back to the village where we were staying, they got busy and put the windshield back into the truck, pounded out the dents in the driver’s door so that it will open and close again, and fixed the roof dent. Jason offered to put the bumper back on using rope, but the young man declined his generous offer. The truck does not look too bad, considering what it went through.

The physical cost of missions is pretty minor actually, when you look at it in light of what Jesus did for us. We are just thankful that we were able to help make a difference in one little village.