Stuck in the mud...

Happy Mother's Day to mom's everywhere!

One of the mom’s in Los Perales has turned what she learned in our sewing class into a business. Our first project was to make a purse. From that first bag, I gave her a copy of the pattern and she made purses for her sisters for Christmas. Last month she made six more purses and sold them. Below are some of them.

 

This month she plans to make 10 more bags and is half way there. The round bag is her design and so is the flower.

What to do when the salt in your shaker is paste due to so much humidity?

We tried everything that we could find on line to get the salt to come out of the salt shaker. The salt was so wet that it was more like paste so as you can imagine, grains of rice, pieces of broken crackers, or toothpicks were not going to help us. Inspiration told us to treat the salt like fruit leather and dry it out in a slightly warm oven. We turned the oven on until the temperature reached about 300 degrees, turned it off, and then added the salt which was spread out over a pizza pan. 

It worked great! The only problem is that we have to keep drying it out every week or so because we continue to have high humidity.

Featured story of the week is Stuck In The Mud:

The Lord sometimes works in mysterious ways:

Let me set the stage for the situation we found ourselves in on Wednesday of this week.

• ·        Yuca and Ruben were both out of town and only a skeleton crew of gauchos were left on the ranch.
• ·        Sunday, we had invited the sister missionaries to our home for dinner, but we had to finish up quickly and get them home when we saw a storm roll in early. In our rush, the back door to the truck was damaged. We were able to get it shut but weren’t sure if it would open and close again without a repair so we locked it hoping to keep anyone from opening it.
• ·        Rain fell heavily about 15 minutes after we got home from taking the sisters home and continued all of Sunday evening and through the night ending Monday about 9 AM. Deep puddles and mud were everywhere.
• ·        Our phone broke on Monday afternoon. We could get service but there was a short somewhere, blocking our ability to input any numbers or access the menu. We had tried trouble shooting the problem but to no avail. We were able to return calls from the teachers on Tuesday morning, but then it stopped working altogether.
• ·        Tuesday the teachers called to see if our roads were passable but we had received more rain than Feliciano where the teachers live and our roads were still a mess. So, school was canceled for Tuesday. We all agreed that by Wednesday we should have dry enough roads to hold school.
• ·        Raul is the main heavy equipment operator at the ranch. Raul stopped by our house Tuesday evening wanting to borrow our cellular so we knew he didn’t have a working phone either.
• ·        We had canceled our appointment in Los Perales on Wednesday partly due to potentially bad roads, (since we didn’t have a phone we couldn’t call the chicas (los perales moms) and they had not responded to our message on Facebook so we didn’t know what conditions their roads were in). The biggest problem of course was if we had problems, we didn’t have a working phone to get help.
• ·        The campo roads connecting most of the gauchos’ homes were not bad by Wednesday, but the public road between our house and the school was terrible. There was one section about sixty feet long where a river ran across the road. It was only about 8-12 inches deep, but the water was moving, and the mud is always so terribly dangerous with that much water with no hard surface for traction. However, it was necessary to use it because it is basically, the only road to the school as the back roads through the campo were completely impassible.
• ·        The teachers needed us to help get them through the river as their vehicle is not as powerful or reliable as ours (or they just didn't want to risk it) so they had parked their vehicle near the river road and we had shuttled both kids and teachers across the death trap. Every trip included a silent prayer.
• ·        There is one family, the Espinosa’s, who live on the other side of the school. They have a moto (motorcycle) and sometimes can get themselves to and from school, but there was still a great deal of mud and water on the road to their home so we shuttled them to school as well.
• ·        We were successful all morning without incident shuttling the teachers and kids despite the mud and water, but we were exhausted.
• ·        After lunch while waiting for school to finish, we took the time to catch our breath and call family members to strengthen relationships and get some relief. Well, that was a total disaster as one close family member, decided that day to inform us that we are "selfish and greedy" for serving missions. They thought that we should be taking care of their needs though we can’t think of anything we could possibly do to help their situation if we were home. Don’t worry, it wasn’t any of our kids or grandkids (who might be the only ones to stake a claim that we have abandoned them). Needless to say, we were both rattled for the ensuing situation we were headed for.

Okay, now that the stage is set, we’ll continue our story.

After school, we asked the teachers to let us take the Espinosa’s home first so that we could limit the number of times we had to cross the river road. The teachers didn’t want to wait, so another parent from the other ranch offered to take them to their car. That was all good except that meant we couldn’t leave our little kids at school with the teachers while we took the Espinosa’s home so the kids had to come with us the 6 miles or so of bad roads in the opposite direction of their home.

In the process of rearranging teachers and kids, the back door got unlocked by one of the kids just trying to help, and as luck would have it, we couldn’t get it shut again. Mother, Maria Espinosa, bravely sat by the broken door holding it shut with one hand and clamoring to stay inside the vehicle with the other.

Well, as you can guess, we hit a terribly muddy wet part of the road which pulled us off the road just enough to get us high centered. A four-wheel drive is of no use if none of the tires are touching the ground. What were we to do?

Well, Amy had the tall boots so she got the shovel out and started digging in an attempt to free up the wheels while Maria pulled out her phone, basically stood on top of the truck outside the broken door so she could get service, and with our list of phone numbers which we had fortunately left in the glove compartment, started calling everyone and anyone she could. Gregg was in charge of the three boys who thought this was the best day ever.

After 30 minutes, we were nowhere. Raul of course could not be reached who was in charge of all the tractors. Almost no one answered, and the few who picked up could not or would not help. No amount of digging or packing with branches did any good either. Amy and Maria tried to push while Gregg was at the wheel, then Maria and Gregg pushed while Amy was at the wheel…still nothing.

One time while Gregg and Maria were trying to push, Amy asked the kids if they would like to pray with her. One of the 8 year old kids asked, “Are you loco (crazy)?”  “No”, she replied “let’s try it”. So after getting the kids to stop doing summer salts in the backseat, (Who do you think might be loco?) she said a short prayer asking for divine help.

We tried two more times to push the heavy vehicle. You’re probably hoping that we’re going to say that it worked the last time, but no…nothing. Feeling undaunted, however, we didn’t let go of our optimism but only thought to ourselves, what did the Lord have in mind for us? In what way would our prayer be answered?

We decided that there was only one last option—walk back to the ranch while the Espinosa’s walked the opposite direction to their home. Espinosa’s would be fine as we were only a couple of miles from their house. On the other hand, we wouldn’t get back to the ranch until after dark, and we’d have to carry two kids across the river road. But, what other choice did we have?

Just as we started to put our new plan into action we spotted a tractor down the road coming toward us about a half mile away. It had been less than 5 minutes since our prayer. Gregg mentioned to the kids that our prayers were indeed answered. They didn’t reply, but they probably thought about it as they looked in astonishment at the relief tractor coming for us. Apparently, Roberto had heard of our plight though we hadn’t called him, and he made time to come to our rescue.

So, why you ask were we not protected and kept from sliding into the mud in the first place? Why was our prayer asking for help not answered with the ability to pull out of the mud with superhero strength? Before you suspect that there is not always a God in heaven to answer prayers, stop and think.

You should have seen the joy Roberto had when we gave him the hallelujah shout of gratitude for being at the right place at the right time with the tractor. You should have seen him glow the next day, when we told him in front of other gauchos that he was our hero.

Though drenched in mud and yuck, you should have seen the three adults when they realized that they would not have to hike into the night with kids on their backs. You should have seen the look of accomplishment when the gaucho, Minyon, was able to get the back door latched again so we could use our truck without losing a kid, an arm or a leg.

Note the locked and taped shut door. We added the words, "Gracias por no molestar la puerta" (Thank you for not bothering the door) over the door handle.

All is well that ends well, and most importantly, we know that a loving Heavenly Father is watching over all of us. We are all better friends having gone through the adventure together. Two men are feeling really good about having saved the day, and Gregg and Amy have the reassurance that though some people are not pleased with their choices, our Father in Heaven is. Nothing is better than knowing—really knowing—that you are where the Lord wants you to be and doing what He wants you to do especially during the trying times. We felt it clear to our bones and it filled our hearts.

So people of every religion and every age, it is NOT crazy to pray. We invite you to try it next time you are "stuck in the mud" so to speak. You must pray with faith and keep an optimistic attitude even when it doesn't work out the way you may have first envisioned, but we believe that the Lord WILL answer you one way or another if the request is a righteous one. (If you are praying to win the lottery, you will probably get a "no" since in the long run it would most likely not be good for you.)

Oh, and when it turns out maybe even better than you imagined, don't forget to thank Him.