Our puppet team has put a lot of work into being prepared for the next set of performances. One was for today up in the mountains of Tutule at the public primary school.
We were excited to be part of the start of the new school year and have the opportunity to perform for about 300 children. We even practiced a new short puppet skit that we added to the start of the show as it was about staying in school and that school is fun!
Yesterday afternoon a cold front came in and was much worse up in the mountains. This morning we received a message that it was raining badly in the mountains. So, we sent out some quick prayer requests to cover our travels and prepare the way ahead of us. The picture above is the mountain road and while it shows the fog that came in, you can also see on the right the tops of the banana trees just off the road growing up the side of the mountain. This is NOT a good road to be on in impaired visibility!!
The visibility continued to get worse and worse the further up the mountain we went!! To top it off, we received a call that the storm had knocked out the electricity in the city we were going to. No electricity, means no speaker, and since we use recorded material that means no show. We prayed and continued going up in hopes that the electricity would be restored.
We made it to Tutule and reached the school to find not only was there no power, but there were also only about 4 or 5 kids running about, instead of the 300+ kids that attend the school. The teachers were all together in one classroom. They told us that it is coffee harvest time and that many kids do not come to school for the first few weeks as they are working harvesting coffee. They also said that there may have been more kids coming today but they probably walked back home because of the heavy rain. I think they may have been actually using the puppet show to entice kids to come!
It was amazing to see the reaction of the team as they said that it was ok and all in God's timing. If there was anyone fairly bummed it was me, but I got over it pretty quickly in hearing their God-focused response. We visited some friends in town and had lunch at the local "comedor". It was fried chicken and some of the best I've ever eaten! (And I've eaten a LOT!)
Our trip back down into the valley was again through thick fog and I was quite happy to be out of the mountains!
This was a neat experience in that in the end it was not about doing a great show but more about having a great attitude and keeping our eyes on God!
There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under the heavens.
Ecclesiastes 3:1
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