Today is national coffee day! Did you know that? I didn’t, but once I heard, I could not let it pass by without celebrating!

(ok- national coffee day in the US is September 29, but international coffee day is October 1st, but why miss out on either?!).

So I optimistically packed some to take along, but our home visits are far from predicable, so who knew if it would work out to stop and enjoy coffee.

See, we’ve been busy this month!

Busy enough that I am not including many of our visits because… well, in trying, I was writing a book!! So, you’re welcome for the cliff notes!

(and yes… this is the short version, I promise!!!)

This month we have continued in our clinic days and our village home visits. I love both more than I can out into words!

These home visits depend on a lot however-
Is our mom home?
Can we find her?
Are the roads passable?

That last question is more relevant during rainy season!

This month, we started by visiting two of our friends who live way out.

No, I mean WAY out!

The view was wonderful, but visiting them means not time to visit anyone else. And that’s worth it.

The fact is, it is so far to reach them, that one of our moms shared she has only come into town a few times in her life!

To clarify, this is the small town I live in, where I feel the need for a monthly shopping run in the city an hour closer to civilization- for her, that is the central town she has only ventured to a few times.

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On another day of visits, We hiked a beautiful but quite sketchy mountain trail in “the same” community.

See, this village is actually more like a large collection of houses clumped here and there across an enormous mountain!

Although we left our car in the same place as we had in the previous visit, it would have taken these moms about and hour and a half to meet up with each other.

For our last visit, we went right, and up. For this mama, we went forward and down.

Very down!

As we jumped across the washed out section of the trail, noticing the call if one missed, I could not help but think of how an 8 month pregnant woman can possibly do this to reach her church weekly or more!

In fact, we did not even make it to her house!

To help us with time, and since she was the very last house down into the valley, she climbed up while we climbed down to meet at her aunt’s house in the middle!

Happily, this aunt is also her midwife! She was not home for the visit, but as mountian life would have it, we passed her on the trail on our climb out!

And yes, we did successfully make it back up out of the valley! barely!

Oh, and we also saw a bug that if it bites you, you have 30 minutes to live… so… there’s that!

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So today we packed up to return to a town we haven’t had access to for some months because of construction on the roads.

We planned to find two of our moms, a family who has grown special to us- grandma has visited us in town a few times, and our little guy with cerebral palsy we have fallen in love with.

It has been far too long since seeing them!

So we set our knowing timing lost on the road might limit us.

The roads were pretty rough, but still passable.

Until they weren’t!

The deep mud tracks spaced the entire road form mountain wall to sheer drop off.

When measured, the muddy grooves were deeper than the chassis of the truck! I genuinely mean more than 2 feet deep across the way.

That’s a nope.

We want to see our friends- to check in on these moms. We could have tried. A moto made it… Shouldn’t we push to see our families??

But sometimes the provision of safety that God gives us is in the wisdom to avoid a dangerous situation.

We will see our moms another day.

Today we will not cross the mud and suffer the consequences of foolishness. No need to drink the mud to taste its foulness.

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Today was not a total loss however. Remember how I shared that it is national coffee day??!!

Well, we had come prepared!

We backed up and found a safe place to park, climbed for a nice mountain view, and broke out the thermoses and coffee mugs!

Folks.

This is how one enjoys national coffee day!

The stillness, coolness, mountain breeze, and view made the coffee taste even better!

Sometimes God closes doors. Don’t fight against these moments- turn instead to gratitude.

In other words, if life gives you mud.
Don’t try to drink it!

Make coffee instead!