Finally made it to Iwia!

This past weekend I finally made it to Iwia! The past few trips have been hindered by swollen rivers and indigenous marches, but we were finally able to get in and visit the church there, meet a lot of members of the community, and visit with the two seminary students that are from that village.

I travelled in Saturday with the pastor and his family, who had come out to Puyo to do some shopping, in a pickup truck. There is a fairly large river a few miles down the river rock road before the village, and as we were crossing it, the pick up truck got stuck halfway across the river! We all had to get out in water up above our knees (my knees, for them it's almost to their waist!) and rock the pick up back and forth until we finally got it out of the river and on its way again!

After the adventure, we had a quiet afternoon of sharing, counseling, etc...and Sunday woke up bright and early for a long morning service. After number of songs, I shared the word, and we handed out a bunch of Christmas bags of candy and cookies that I had brought in. After the service we played some volleyball, and shared until lunch time...the bus out was late in coming, and I thought that I would be stuck on that side of the river until it stopped raining, but thankfully the bus was able to just barely cross the river!