a sick child, a van stuck in the mud and a life lesson

Today was a travel day and it was long, very long. The day started weird simply because we were off schedule. We all stayed in the same house and woke up at 5:00 to start the drive. Before we loaded up we all stood in a circle in a neighborhood, before the sun came up thanking Jesus for his new mercies for the day. As we loaded into the vans some kids were back to sleep before the vans pulled out of the driveway. We watched the sunrise from the vans and then we stopped for sausage biscuits at McDonalds. Every meal we ate today was in the van, so that was an adventure within itself.

As we got further into the ride, some kids started getting sick. Car sickness is a real thing around here. Not sure if sweet, Rebecca would get sick in the van or not we heard Brenda shout "auntie"-- only to turn around and see our sweet babe getting sick on a sweater. We paged the other vans and within a minute we were all pulled over to the side of the interstate helping sweet Rebecca. As we loaded back into the vans, we noticed that the blue van in front of ours was stuck, it'd gone too far into the ditch.
This only meant one thing: we were stuck. on the interstate. with 18 kids.

Marissa and Lindsay were the drivers of the blue van and decided to unload the kids from their van, Misty (black van) came to check on things and soon after the entire choir was on the side of the blue van pushing the back while Marissa tried to drive us out of the hole, only digging us deeper it seemed. A couple of things you should know about Marissa, she missed her calling as a driver in Fast and Furious and she is strong, like loads the entire trailer by herself- strong. She is ranked number 2 in the state of Texas for powerlifting. We realized this in the middle of her trying to drive us out of the hole that we needed her to push. She switched seats with Darya, while I basically stood by taking pictures of the entire thing and tell at the driver to stop when the kids in the back said stop. The kids were desperate to get the van out, at one point digging became their answer. Marissa was in control of it all, telling the kids what to do and how to do it. Charles brought a wooden shelf out of the trailer for us to try and drive over, only for us to burn out a couple of times. You could see everyone giving up. I saw a house up the road a little bit and said that I was going to ask for help. I am not afraid to ask for help, ever. So I started the hike (mini walk) to the house and Darya joined. This is the moment that I knew this was my life, that I wouldn't be anywhere in the world.

There was a small creek we thought we would have to jump over to even get to the fence, just hoping that its short enough to jump over or that the house owner is outside. However, there was no creek to jump over and there was someone outside. I don't know if you have ever stood on the side of the interstate, but it is loud. Very loud and the fence was higher than we though, this only meant one thing-- We were about to have to scream. We decided that at the count of 3, we would scream, "hey"-

1...2...3...
"HEY"

nothing. He could hear us.
-wait for the trucks to pass-

1....2...3..
"HEY"

A man noticed us and walked across the field with his two fiends following behind him. We explained that we were stuck and we needed something to put under the tire if he had it, he didn't say much. He nodded then walked away, we stood there not sure what to do but laugh at the far off image of the boys gathering sticks to place under the tires and Brenda washing her hands in the small creek the rain had caused. The man showed back up with a chain over his should, they jumped the fence and followed us to the vans. He knew what he was doing. He placed the hooks where they needed to go and with Darya in the red van and Marissa in the blue van, it finally came out. We were out of the hole. The kids shouted like we had won the lottery. We had a mini celebration then jumped back into the vans to continue the rest of the 8 hour journey.

We stopped for lunch, eating PB&J and chicken nuggets on the road. This is when Darya and I switched driving seats. She took a nap and I laughed as I listened to her playlist of worship music, simply because my life truly is a mess. The vans I spend most of my time in our messy, the kids are messy, my clothes are messy, my hair is mess, my purse and backpack are messy, my journal has jotted notes of each day causing it to look very messy. My life is a mess, but it is such a beautiful one. I learn new things every daily, today I think I learned something new every hour.

Thankful for the men who came to save the day and thankful that this is truly a time of learning to be flexible and as an old friend would say, 'ride the wave we call life'