No Good Thing: Up on the mountain

(One year overdue...this all happened September 2012)

After traveling for three weeks in Alabama, Oklahoma, and New Mexico, we had a "week off" with no meetings scheduled. Last year when this happened we were able to assist a ministry in Colorado Springs, CO and we truly enjoyed it. We were surrounded by the Garden of the God's park, and we were able to see Pike's Peak from a distance.

Since we needed to stay out west for up coming meetings, Jonathan tried to see if we could help the same ministry. They told him that the main ministry location didn't need our help, but they had a camp that had been damaged by the summer forest fires that could really use some man power.

The camp was only about 20 to 30 minutes from Colorado Springs...on paper or as the crow flys...but when you add in the mountain roads...it was pretty far away. Little did we know we would be up IN Pikes Peak National Park.

As we were climbing up the mountain, my husband turned on the gps feature that told our altitude. 8000 ft...8500 ft...I finally told him to keep it to himself. I didn't want to know. I was about 25 weeks pregnant and altitudes always do weird things to me when pregnant. I just wanted to be ignorant about the fact that we were really 9300 ft above sea level.

Unfortunately I wasn't the only on who didn't like the altitude and mountain climbing. As we turned onto the dirt road to camp, our truck started smelling and pouring out fluid...transmission fluid. So for the time being we left our camper and truck parked on the dirt road, loaded up the boys and myself and a few essential belongings into the remaining working truck and proceeded to camp...on the bumpiest road I've ridden on during all 3 pregnancies. Jonathan seriously thought I was going into labor.

After much work and many helpful hands as well as the wonderful provision of God we figured out we blew the transmission on our truck and the Lord allowed it to be replaced in time for us to make it to our next week of meetings.

But that was only the beginning of the week! I found myself huffing and puffing the rest of the week around our cabin and up the stairs. The couch and the bathroom were my two favorite friends for I could not keep much food down. The boys were entertained by their fisher price basketball net and old PBS kids episodes on the internet. The scenery was beautiful, the rest of the team accomplished much in cleaning up the forest fire debris...but I was counting my days to get off that mountain!

And miraculously as soon as we came down, I could eat again!! I've never been so thankful to be able to eat before! Let's just say this week was truly a learning experience...one of complete dependence and one where I realized that I must continue to surrender to God moment by moment or I simply wouldn't make it.