“Please come quickly,” was what I understood as she ended the hurried call. What’s wrong? was our thought as we drove to the school. Arriving there, we heard the rest of the story.
“The grey truck is stuck in the mud. It’s a mess!”
“Where is it stuck? How did it happen?” we asked.
The driver was going along the farm’s dirt road, and as he took the turn, he ended up in a swampy area of the forest, and the truck got bogged down.
“It can’t move at all.”
“Oh, no,” we said, then sighed. “Do we need any tools or equipment to get it out?”
“We need a chainsaw to cut away some trees. They tried to push the truck, but it’s too heavy, and the mud is too deep.”
After getting an idea of the exact location, two trucks with five helpers drove to the farm. We asked God for His help and protection.
The air was chilly, and the sky was overcast with clouds so thick that it was difficult to see the sun. The ground was wet and muddy due to the earlier rain. A thick layer of dead leaves and twigs covered the ground of the dense forest, making it difficult to walk. The truck was stuck in the mud on a narrow dirt road that wound through the forest, and we were rushing to get it out before the next downpour.
We pushed and pulled the truck with all our might, but it would not budge. Some people used shovels to dig around the truck’s wheels to create some space for it to move. Others used wooden planks to create traction for the wheels. One young man chopped up the tree stumps around the truck. The scene was chaotic, with people shouting instructions at each other and trying their best to get the vehicle out of the mud. We were panicking.
Then a giant black scorpion appeared from under one of the wooden planks being used to create traction for the wheels. Our farm worker nonchalantly picked it up and walked toward me to show its size. I decided not to panic but to take pictures instead, as I knew no one would believe me if I told the story. After the photo shoot, he gently let the scorpion go. Needless to say, I did not get out of the truck at all.
As we were trying to use our truck to pull the vehicle out of the mud, the grey truck suddenly lurched backward and almost hit a large tree. The other drivers reacted quickly and stopped the vehicle just in time. We then continued to pull the vehicle out of the mud with even more caution.
We drove back, praising God for His goodness and contemplating how our lives are sometimes stuck in the mud without us realizing it, and we need others to help us out; or how others can be stuck in the mud, and God can use us to free them.
