Part 2 Of The Hike

A 6 mile hike is nothing for the Lord. A village at the bottom of a mountain is no far enough for the Lord. Guatemala is not a forgotten nation. His grace, His love, His mercy, it all reaches all over the world. There is not a place or person that is not seen by Him. His presence is overwhelming. If we would not have hiked down 6 miles to the village, God would have still shown Himself to the people. This village felt abandoned for several reasons, but God wants to remind us He is not a God of abandonment. That is what is so amazing about God is that He reaches the farthest people and uses us to remind them of His love. It was such an amazing opportunity to be the hands and feet of God to help this village be reminded of what God says about us.

Alrighty, so I shared that I thought the way down was going to be the hardest part of the day. But, I was so wrong. After we finished with the church service and children’s ministry, we had a quick lunch and prepared ourselves for the way up. A few of us expressed some physical pain that we were feeling and took some time to pray over that. Little did we know was that was not going to be the last time we would stop and pray.

It was about 2pm when we started hiking. The sun was shining so bright (thank you Lord for your sunshine) and our water was scarce (thank you Lord for providing always). The physical pain that I was feeling on the way down, began to occur again. My ankles were on fire and my hip was killing me. The incline was the craziest thing ever, we were literally climbing up a mountain (this was unlike my usual Colorado mountains haha). As the pain grew, I asked the group to stop. I checked my watch to see how long we have been going for, 20 minutes… 20 MINUTES!!! You mean to tell me that I still have 2 hours and 40 minutes to go!! As we kept going, more pain. We had to continuously stop to catch our breaths and take rests.

I was ready to give up! I prayed that the Lord would somehow bring a cow or a horse that could just carry me back up because I could not do it… All of a sudden our host told another teammate of mine and myself to go in the front. Now I was feeling pressured to keep going and to not be the weak link. During the hike, I kept “yelling” at God for making it so hot and each step I just kept saying “Come on Jesus, move my body.” Suddenly, the sun was covered by the trees. And I felt like I got rejuvenated strength. So, thank you God for the sun because it taught me your love shines so bright.

As my body continued to ache, I thought to myself, “why did our host bring us down here.” As you can see, a lesson was learned and God convicted my heart. We are the hands and feet of Jesus, and we were brought down there to show that to this village. By this point, we had stopped to pray about three times. This experience definitely brought my team together and we were able to experience a very low with one another. With still about an hour left to the hike, one of my teammates leg began to cramp. We believe it was due to dehydration so we told her to drink the rest of her water. With water being scarce, we each worried there would not be enough. We kept hiking but the cramping continued, and the Lord provided more water. The Lord provides always!

Since I was put up front, my one goal was just to reach the top of the mountain. As we kept praying for cramping to stop and strength to be given, I prayed the Lord would just get me to the top. Every step was a prayer. “Please Lord” (one step) “Give me strength God” (another step). Our hosts tells us that we are almost there, only about ten minutes left to go. As my teammates helped one another, I feared that if I stopped, I would just stay there so I kept going. Once I saw the path we first came on, I almost ran to the rock to sit. This hike was definitely the most exhausted I have been physically and the hardest mind power ever.

As we shared as a team what we each experienced, I realized that we each felt so weak. But I just thank God that He was able to give us the strength to get to the bottom and to visit the village and to get back up. I also mentioned that a pastor and his wife do this hike every week to pastor the church, so I thank God that He has brought someone who is willing to endure that hike in order to shepherd the people. The hike was hard, but God’s love is so good!