It had been a week since I had really slept. We started this day at 4:30 AM waking up to get on the road by 5:00. I was exhausted before the day started and stressed out as many of things I had hoped would be in place for our team to be in Mahvusa were not. Things were not going according to "my" plan. Our mission for this day was to drop Git(Jam's main man) and Derek off at the Johannesburg airport Tambo International. This trip usually takes about 5 hours by car. We made very good time arriving in Joburg by 11:00 am and I was still very tired. The best part of the day shortly awaited us in the form of a wonderful lunch prepared for us by the Cantrell family. Tim Cantrell is from Texas and is pastoring a church in Joburg with his amazing wife Michelle and their 5 children. Michelle used to babysit me, my brother and sister way back inthe early 90's. They really blessed us with a great meal and some awesom fellowship and sent us on our way to the airport. This is when things got crazy.
We said our goodbyes to Git and Derek and now Lifter and I were on our own. Did I mention that we're in Johannesburg aka "The Dark City." Our next challenge was to find our truck which took an hour and made me want to say bad things. Finally we found the truck and we were on our way. One thing you must know is that the truck is a stick/manuel and i have never driven anything but automatics in my 14 years of driving. I did recieve 3 lessons but was not confident behind the wheel by any means. Driving out of the parking lot we were immediately stopped by the police and interigated. They let us go but there was a problem. It was rush out traffic in Johannesburg 5:00 pm. We decided since I was so tired to stay the night with Lifter's brother in Joburg. Stop and go traffic is not easy for a "stick" driving beginer especially in Joburg where the people drive CRAZY! Right off ramp to Gemerstown (the suberb where Lifter's brother lives) our truck stalled and would not start back up. We were about to run out of gas. The cars and taxi's drove around us honking and yelling and finally the truck started. Anxiously we made our way to the 1st gas station available. Thank you Jesus! After the tank was full our plan was to go see one of Lifter's friends who is a taxi driver and then find a KFC for dinner. This plan took us to downdown Gemerstown, one of Johannesburg's biggest suberbs where there were hundreds and thousands of people lining the streets, crossing dangerously and making there way back home from work. I definately felt like I was not supposed to be driving in this place....Seriously! Lifter instructed me to take a left onto a steep hill. Big problem! If we have to stop, there's no way i'll be able to start this truck agian. I had practiced stopping and starting on hills oncebefore and was successful once or twice out of 10 tries or so and the hill I was practicing on wasn't a steep as the hill that I was now on in the middle of rush our traffic with thousands of people on lining the streets. Wouldn't you know it traffic stopped right in the middle of this hill and I couldn't get the truck started again. We're right in the middle of a taxi train and our truck is going downhill instead of up. The honking was first and then the yelling. When the truck almost hit one of the taxi's is when the drivers then got out of their vehicles. I was panicing. My heart was up in my throat and my adrenaline was pumping. It was sink or swimm and I was sinking fast. Lifter got out of the truck to try and help. He got one of the taxi driver's who was hitting my window and yelling at me to move the truck up a bit so I wouldn't hit any cars and I could try again to get the car going. But I still couldn't get it going. The South African taxi drivers were really getting pissed now. Getting murdered in the streets of Joburg for not being able to drive uphill wasn't the way I wanted to go and i was scared. One of the taxi drivers was actually come to fight me when Lifter, aka Bokoro or courage, grabbed his wrist and said "you're not coming to fight, you're coming to drive us where we need to go." Stunned the guy got into driver's seat as i got into the back and drove us out of danger. Music was the taxi driver's name. He left his taxi for his brother to drive so he could drive us.
I thought this guy was going to drive us into danger but he didn't. He was actually really enjoying driving in a nice truck and was shocked that a white man would let him drive his car. Lifter, Music and I then had a meal at KFC. I thought buying Music dinner was the least I could do. Music told me that he would love to go to the US because of white people like me which confused me a little. He was referring to how I trusted him to drive our truck (which I didn't but had no other choice) and the friendship that I had with Lifter. Whites and black just don't go together in South Africa. After dinner we made our way to Lifter's brothers where we spent the night which is another story that I don't have time to tell lol. The next morning we drove home. I don't think I stopped praying the whole way home.
God really protected us. He is so faithful and is really good as getting me to the end of myself when I need discipline. My limited ability and my weakness gives God tons of opportunity to perfect His power. I'm so thankful for grace. I learned once again how badly I need Jesus to act in my life. Without His grace nothing good is going to happen this year in Mahvusa. I'm happy to report that since this experience I've been seeking Christ a lot more! Lots of love from Mahvusa and I hope to be blogging alot more now. The storries are starting to pile up.
