The story of crossing the river

As you know by now, in Honduras we ride in a school bus to and from the Mission Home and village. It is not unusual for us to have to cross over creeks in the bus to get to the villages we go to. We were all warned ahead of time that we would have to cross a creek. No one was worried, though, because we had all crossed a creek in Honduras at some point. Well we woke up on Sunday morning and prepared to head out on our 2 hour trip to Villa Santa, the village we visited. Our luggage went the night before. It had rained allllll night so the roads were not in the best condition. After about an hour and a half, I heard our team captain, Stan, say, "The creek is up ahead." I look up and instead of seeing a little creek, I see a raging river.

At this point, I'm thinking to myself, 'There is NO way we can ride a school bus across this river.' The river did have a little concrete bridge crossing it, but the bridge was still under construction.

So we all get out of the bus and walk down to the bridge where numerous Honduran workers and policemen are standing so that we could try to figure out what to do. So as we spoke to the policemen, we realize that this is the ONLY way to get to the village.....and our luggage made it the night before....the rain made the river rise. So all of our belongings are on the other side of this river. As we are still talking to the Hondurans, I see something moving out of the corner of my eye. I look up and a huge tree is falling straight toward us! The bank of the river was caving in because of the speed of the water! We all run and miss the tree. Unfortunately, the tree hits a Honduran man, but he only had minor injuries.

After talking to the policemen for an hour and a half, they finally agree to let us cross the bridge by foot. However, since the bridge was still under construction and not very stable, we were only allowed to cross two people at a time. Otherwise, the bridge would collapse under the weight of more people. Greeeeat.

It felt like we were walking into Noah's Ark! We all eventually make it to the other side. We had to wait another hour or so for someome to find a bus to come get us and take us to the village. A great way to start our week, huh?