#4 My First Time in an Ambulance

The next day we walked four hours over to another village to spend some time with a different group of people. We had a wonderful time there that day as my friend talked about the cost of following Him. We had a great response, but by the afternoon, we were very tired from the past couple days and very happy that we had decided to stay in that village for the night. We were showered with hospitality and enjoyed the rest of the day relaxing and visiting with the people there. After a good night's sleep, we woke up to hear that a vehicle had been found for us to travel back to the other village so we could save our strength for the next two full days of teaching. So what was the vehicle? That’s right...an ambulance!

My thoughts were along these lines: "This should be good. An ambulance driver should be a safe driver used to carrying delicate cargo. There should be no safer way to drive around winding mountain roads than in a 4x4 ambulance right?" Wrong! About 10 seconds after the last door was closed, the clutch was popped, and the neck breaking adventure began. Keep in mind this is a dirt road that is heavily rutted from tires and the monsoon rains. There were several stream crossings, several large boulders in the road, and hundreds of chickens, goats, and people along the way. None of these things slowed down our driver. His cargo, that would be us, was tossed around like rag dolls in the back. I thought I would have whiplash for sure. My friend sat in the front seat and said that on one sharp turn we hit 32 mph. Next time you are driving, take a 90 degree turn at 32 mph, and then picture yourself on a dirt road with a 500 foot drop awaiting you if you slip off the road. Let’s just say I was preparing my soul for eternity. We arrived, but I don’t know if safely would be the word. We just arrived. Hopefully that will be my last time in an ambulance, but if nothing else at least my last time in an ambulance on a dirt road in the mountains!