The day before I was suppose to return back to Louisiana, Jonathan and I decided to go on an adventure into the mountains surrounding General Cepeda. After morning prayer with the team, we packed a picnic and headed out to visit one of the farthest ranchos called La Casita or “the little house.” We wanted to be outside in God beautiful creation while enjoying each others company and spending some time alone before I headed back to the states.
The road up is narrow, rough and a little scary to say the least, with rocky mountains on one side and a deep cliff on the other. We stopped on long the way to enjoy breakfast at a small crystal clear waterfall that flowed over the road. The unexpected rainfall that General and other parts of northern Mexico had received recently due to hurricane Alex, caused the normally dry, desert river beds to flow with an abundance of cold mountain stream water. Although we didn’t drink the water we did make sure to splash around before continuing on our trip.
Upon arriving to La Casita, I was amazed at the beautiful, green, lush scenery that I beheld. I had never seen this part of Mexico so green before, with real grass, and gorgeous flowers all around the little rancho. We did a bit of hiking and exploring, and discovering the beauties that the Lord had hidden away in this forgotten place. Our discoveries included two boys, trying to coax two “gringos” into buying a snake that they recently killed, telling us we could make boots out of the skin, although I was skeptical. Following a smoke trail we met an older woman burning her trash outside who graciously invited us into her home. She told us beautiful stories about her life, her family of ten children and little community, as she offered us some cold juice and radical hospitality. Throughout the day we watched as a storm rolled in, and while we sat in the older women’s kitchen it began to drizzle and the wind picked up and she advised us to head back down the mountain before the storm became too bad.
Once on the road, our decent became harder and harder as the rain turned from a light drizzle, to a heavy downpour, to a raging wind with massive marble sized hail, completely blocking our vision. The road that I was concerned about on the way up, was now my worst nightmare, a muddy stream, and all I could picture was our van plummeting off the side of the cliffside to the valley stories below. And all I could think was, “praise you Jesus!” We arrived at the bottom only to find our lovely breakfast nook, a flash flood. After cautiously crossing the now flooding road, we stopped to have our lunch and watch the water rise.
Within half an hour the water had risen exponentially and the previously clear water was now a river of milk chocolate. Upon continuing on our journey home, we marveled at how much the water had risen and thanked the Lord we had made it across. But to our dismay, we had forgotten that the stream crossed the road at another section and were trapped, forcing the other missionaries to have to unexpectedly lead the prayer meeting without our help at the rancho just beyond the flooded road. All we could do was wait for the flooded road to become passable again and thankfully we waited for only three hours. It was quite the adventure filled day, full of so many new memories, and made the real the scripture that God makes rivers flow in the desert.
Anyone want to buy a snake?
what the sky looked like as we were getting into the car
the road 10 minutes after we crossed
The same spot we stopped for breakfast, what a change!
