A 4x4 ministry

One of the roles I gladly accept here is servant. If I am asked to do something that I am capable of doing, I always say yes. Frequently that involves the use of our mission vehicle, a 1994 Toyota Land Cruiser affectionately named “The Beast” by my daughters. Early one morning Pablo called and asked for my help. He said the Dodge Durango used by Pablo was broken down somewhere in the mountains and could I drive Santiago and a mechanic to see if we could get it started. He also said I might need to tow it back to the main road if we were not successful in getting it to run.

The Durango had been given to the Maya Synod by the state of Chiapas after it sat in an impound lot for 3 years. We had scrapped together about $3000 USD last October to have the engine rebuilt and new tires, but I wondered if we could get it to run once we got to it.

San, the mechanic,and I turned right off the paved road from Ocosingo to Palenque, onto a dirt road, and started driving into the mountainous rain forest. After 3-4 miles, we came around a curve and saw a crowd of people standing in the road. There was an over-turned Nissan pick-up truck in a culvert to our left. The truck had flipped over after its left wheels ran off the road when making the turn. Luckily, the driver was uninjured and there were no people in the back of the truck when it flipped. These trucks are one of the primary transportation methods here, and it is not unusual to see 12-15 people in the bed on their way to and from town.

We got out to look and help, and I noticed ropes were tied to the axles and frame of the truck. The people helping had placed tree trunks across the culvert beside the road. I realized that these men planned to flip this truck onto the logs using the ropes and human strength. But first they needed me to use the Beast to pull a large tree they had cut down with a machete (which is another story altogether) out of the jungle. So we tied a rope to the Beast, and I used the low range gear for the first since coming to Chiapas and pulled the tree from the jungle. The men cut it into three pieces and added these to the logs over the culvert. Then, before I knew it, everyone was holding onto a rope and preparing to flip the truck. I grabbed hold and like a mad tug-of-war, we began to pull on the ropes. With each pull, the excitement grew, the yelling got louder, and eventually the truck flipped onto its wheels on the tree trunks.

I was elated and surprised that we had been able to do something that no one I know in the states would attempt. As the men held the ropes, I attached a tow rope to the truck and to the Beast and slowly pulled the truck back onto the road. Everyone was yelling and whooping and patting me on the back for helping them, but they did the hard part! I just used the power of the Beast to help them complete the task.

These indigenous Indians are an industrious people who accomplish so much with the limited materials at their disposal. And they are a community of people helping each other. No one knew each other when they arrived at the scene of the accident, but they all worked together to help a fellow man out of a jam. I was happy to have participated and to have been able to help. I left with a renewed sense that if anything happened to us while we were in the middle of nowhere that we would be okay because of the hospitable and generous people of Chiapas.

The rest of the story is that we found the Durango, quickly found the problem, corrected it, and San drove it back to Ocosingo. Thanks be to God!