Saturday morning a group of us headed out to go to Paso de Cortez (Cortez Pass) which is in between two Volcanos. It only took us a little over an hour to get there. The two volcanos are named Popocatépetl and Ixtaccíhuatl - yeah try to pronounce that! These volcanos are about 17,000 feet tall, and where we were walking and driving around were about 11,000 feet. In our group were Me, Tiffany, Alyssa, Matt, Rod, Daniel, Dylan, Robert, Brigam, Fabian, Pancho, and David. We took Rod's big van and Fabian (a new church member)'s small VW golf. Let me just begin by saying it is not an off road vehicle by any means!
The weather was beautiful, blue sky, the clearest some say it has been in months. Starting up the mountain/volcano it was a curvy paved road, much like that of home for me, but then pavement turned into dirt and gravel. We stopped and went to a waterfall to take pictures and walk around. And then we continued on the road to La Venta for quesadillas and fishing. When we got to La Venta we were all discussing what we were going to do and then Fabian walked up to us and had oil all over his hand and proceeded to tell Rod that a rock in the road had blown a hole in his oil pan! Everyone in the group was discussing what needed to be done or what plan of action to take and about that time everyone started pointing up to the volcano and there was a large plume of ash coming out of the top - not as big as the day before. The eruption was cool to see!
Rod, Fabian, Daniel (Rod's son), Pancho and Tiffany all left in the van to go find a new oil pan for Fabian's car. Daniel, Pancho and Tiffany were sent home by public transportation, just in case we all had to ride in the van! I think they left around 2 pm. Rod left Me, Alyssa, Matt, Brigam, Robert, Dylan and David all up on the mountain quite close to a very active volcano. So basically we felt a little stranded on top of a mountain for two and a half hours. While we waited for Rod and Fabian to come back, Me, Brigam, Robert and Dylan went fishing in a trout pond....aka the fish hardly had room to swim! The first cast in I caught a fish. I had to teach all the boys how to cast and even one how to fish! Daddy would be proud! With the eight fish we caught we had the restaurant cook the fish for us for lunch, sounds great right? It was really good! When Rod and Fabian returned we were all just wandering about, they got back around 4:30 or so and we then had to wait for Fabian to fix the car! Alyssa and I went on a walk along a stream and enjoyed nature and the beauty of God's creation. Around 7 pm the new oil pan was finally on the car!
Here is where the story gets good!
We started to head back down the mountain, well up about five miles and then down about twenty curvy miles. Fabian was driving in his car with Matt and Alyssa in front of the rest of us in the van. While Rod was pointing out the spots where Fabians car had leaked and the two rocks where it had busted the oil pan. When Rod pointed out the location of the first hit we saw another trail, one that was not supposed to be there, and most of us at the same time realized it was a new trail of oil coming from Fabian's car! Yes, it happened again!! So about 2 or 3 miles into the 5 miles of dirt road to the top of the mountain the car broke down! Que Horrible!! How horrible! We all got out of the van to check it out and by that time the air had cooled off and was freezing outside! Rod told the guys they might have to push the car the rest of the way up! Rod found a nylon rope with hooks in the back of the van and so he tied the van to the car and tried to pull, the line snapped. While the boys were devising a plan Alyssa and I were in the van. I prayed aloud, "God, please send someone or something our way to help us!" About 3 minutes a small pickup truck drove by and stopped. Fabian bought a strong rope from the man for about 4 dollars. If that isn't an answered prayer I dont know what is! How "random" is it that someone drove by with exactly what we needed! Once again the boys proceeded to tie the car to the van and with a great joint effort - pushed the car enough to get it going and then ran and jumped in the van! Praise God!
Going up the mountain in a van pulling a car was quite interesting! When we got to the top we untied the car, put on our seatbelts and went for possibly the wildest ride of our lives! The van went in front of the car just in case the brakes did not hold! Fabian was driving down the mountain or should I say, Riding in the Hands of God. It was a true example of faith. His car was off, out of gear and no power steering! Can you imagine? I prayed the whole way up the mountain for a rope! and the whole way down the mountain for safety and for God to drive the car! After 20/30 minutes of coasting down a very curvy, very dark narrow mountain road, the road dipped agian and we had to tie the car back to the van to get it to a point of decline. We continued down the mountain and once the road leveled out tied the vehicles back together and guided Fabian into a gas station to park it for the night. We all piled in the van and went home. We got there close to midnight, our intended goal to come back home was 6 pm...
In the long Saturday God showed us his beauty (in the waterfalls), his power (in the volcano) and his faithfulness (in the car breaking down).
As a team we have been studying the first three chapters in 1 Corinthians.
"For the foolishness of God is wiser than man's wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man's strength" 1 Corinthians 1:25 (pushing a car, pulling a car with a rope)
"Let him who boasts boast in the Lord." 1 Corinthians 1:31 (We did not push and pull and guide the car down the mountain! Let all the Glory be God's!!!)
Fabian's car has been fixed and we are all well - and we all have a story to tell.
God is doing great things here, not by me, not by the team, not by Rod. But throught the holy spirit. "I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow." 1 Corinthians 5:6-7 By no means am I belittling the work that is being done here by the team andy by Rod, but my point is that God puts people and situations into our lives to plant seeds and water. But to grow - is God.
And this morning we talked about 1 Corinthians 3:16-23 "(16)Dont you know that you yourselves are God's temple and that God's spirit lives in you? ...(21) So then, no more boasting about men! All things are yours, wheter Paul or Apollos or Cephas or hte world or life or death or the present or the future - all are yours, and you are of Christ, and Christ is of God."
The legend of Iztaaihuatl and Popocapetl:
ReplyDeleteIn Aztec mythology, Iztaccíhuatl was a princess who fell in love with Popocatépetl, one of her father's warriors. The emperor sent Popocatépetl to war in Oaxaca, promising him Iztaccíhuatl as his wife when he would return (which Iztaccíhuatl's father presumed he would not). Iztaccíhuatl was falsely told Popocatépetl had died in battle, and believing the news, she died of grief. When Popocatépetl returned to find his love dead, he took her body to a spot outside Tenochtitlan and kneeled by her grave. The gods covered them with snow and changed them into mountains. Iztaccíhuatl's mountain is called "White Woman" (from the nahuatl iztac "white" and cihuatl "woman") because it resembles a woman sleeping on her back, and is often covered with snow. (The peak is sometimes nicknamed La Mujer Dormida ("The Sleeping Woman").) He became the volcano Popocatépetl, raining fire on Earth in blind rage at the loss of his beloved.