What’s worse than being on the water in a motorboat in a downpour? Being on the water in a paddleboat in a downpour. Last week Terri, Alex, Compton, and I set out to preach in a small village nearby that can only be reached by water, and there is a bridge over it that is so low, a boat with a motor won’t fit and shortly after we set out it started to pour. So what’s worse than being in a paddleboat in a downpour? Being in a paddleboat in a downpour and having to be paddling against the current. Tide was going out, and we were trying to paddle up the creek, so it made the going quite difficult. What’s worse than padding in the rain against the current? It’s having to paddle in the rain against the current with a princess. Once it started raining, Terri put down her paddle so she could hold her umbrella. So now instead of four of us paddling, there were only three. What’s worse than being in a paddleboat in a downpour with a princess? It’s having to sit next to the princess. I felt so bad, Compton was sitting next to Terri, paddling away, and all the rain was running off her umbrella and pouring onto him, and he didn’t say a word. We finally reached the village about the time the rain stopped, and by the time we had finished, we had dried out. As a final insult, the tide had turned while we were preaching, so we had to paddle back against the current as well.
A couple days later, Joe took me on one of the dirt bikes out to territory on the other side of Wauna. We were going down all these little dirt tracks to some of the calls he had out there. It will be a real challenge to try and find my way back to them.
Monday Joe, Christina, and I went back on the river. Joe said it was going to be a short day, but he wanted to complete the stretch of the river we had been working on recently. Once again, I was driving the boat. Things went pretty well until later in the day. By then, the tide had changed and it was running out. We had been told there was one more house left on the river, and we had already passed it without seeing it, so we were working our way back. We came upon a small side creek and started following it. We had gone quite a ways up it and then it forked, so we just guessed which one and continued up it. The creek kept getting narrower and narrower, finally we decided we must have chosen the wrong fork, so we found a place where we could spin the boat around and headed down. Now we were going with the current, so it moved along fairly fast. But in order to have any control of the boat, you needed to be moving forward through the water, so now it seemed like you were flying down this narrow windy creek dodging trees, branches, and hanging vines. I said I felt like I was on one of those log flume rides at an amusement park. When we got back to the fork in the creek, we then turned and went up the other, only to repeat the return process again.
Once we returned to the river, we passed a small canal going off the river, and as we sat there looking at it, trying to decide if that might be where the house was, a man appeared at the other end. We turned and headed in, but by the water had gotten quite low, so we weren’t able to get the boat in very far. We shut the motor off and asked the man if the bank along the canal was walkable. He said it was very soft, so Joe asked if he had a small canoe there. He said he did, so Joe asked if he’d come out to us. He disappeared around a corner, and he reappeared with this small dugout canoe, which he proceeded to give a push to so it came to the boat. Now these boats are known for being very unstable, basically you are balancing on a log while trying to paddle. But Joe, being the trooper he is, climbed in to paddle over to the man, I don’t know if he had even taken a stroke before he tipped too far one way and the canoe was completely swamped and he was quite wet. I wished I had taken a video of it. At this point, Joe was deciding that if the man wouldn’t put forth the effort to walk to us, it wasn’t worth the bother. I think the man must has realized what was about to happen, because he walked right out to us. Turned out he couldn’t read, but said that some times someone came to visit him who could, so he asked for something so they could read it to him when they came..
Yesterday Terri and I moved all our things into the main house because we are expecting the arrival of four more workers today. William and his new wife Jennifer are returning, so he will be back in his house and two single brothers, one from Vermont, and one from Oregon are also coming. They will be living in a house they will be renting nearby. The added male help will be welcome for the meeting.
Now that I am living in the main house where I have access to the internet full-time, I will soon try posting a few pictures as well, but not today. I had recently checked the ten day forecast for WNY and saw that it was going to be below freezing all the 10 days, and nine of the ten called for snow. So, think of us sweating in the heat and sun, and we will think of you freezing in the snow and cold.
