Stranded in the Wild

Well, almost the wild.  The Nakuru National Game Park is a big park, and there are a lot of wild animals in there.

A few kilometers past the baboons, our car began to smoke and we smelled a bad smell--not a good sign.  Our troubles had actually begun a few kilometers back by the lake. 

It was quite muddy down there, and our car has a very low ground clearance.  We got stuck.

BJ was trying to ease our way across a ditch when we suddenly slid hard into it, and something broke underneath the car.  The car still ran, but it made a strange noise after that like maybe the cooling fan had bent and was scraping against something.  We hoped we could still make it through the park and then get the car serviced later on in the day.

But alas, just passed the baboons, we saw the smoke and smelled the transmission fluid that was leaking out everywhere.  And that was the end of that.

I must admit to some fear.  Here we were stranded out in the middle of nowhere with wild animals all around us.  We didn't see any right there, but that didn't mean that they couldn't see us! 

 

Every time BJ got out of the vehicle to look under the hood, my fear escalated.  The park is known to have lions and leopards, not to mention the herd of cape buffalo we just drove through!

He decided to call Bro. Mickey to let him know our situation.

But things continued to get worse.  He checked his phone and found that we had no cell phone reception in the game park!  I suddenly had visions of spending the night there in our car.  Not a pleasant thought!

A few minutes later he found that if he held his cell phone in just the right spot, he had some reception.  He was able to get through to Bro. Mickey who soon had help on the way.  (Bro. Mickey's truck was getting serviced too which meant that he couldn't come himself to tow us out.)  BJ sat like this with his phone out the window for the next two hours in case they tried to call him back! 

Brina soon got sleepy and fell asleep on my lap while we listened to Seth's new Patch the Pirate CD, "Shipwrecked on Pleasure Island".  BJ and I grinned at each other as much of the story was very applicable to our situation!  We sure weren't going anywhere anytime soon either!

When Brina woke up, she entertained us for a while.

To be honest with you, I was so disappointed I felt like crying.  We've been promising Seth this trip to the game park since his birthday, and one thing after another has kept it from happening.  Now we were only a short ways into the park and hadn't yet seen all of the animals, and we were going to have to be towed out of there. 

I knew I had two choices.  I could show my disappointment with a bad attitude and a complaining spirit, or we could decide to see the whole thing as a big adventure.  I knew a good attitude in Mommy and Daddy was very important for our children to see.  It really helped Seth to deal with the disappointment too.  I was so proud of him.  He learned a very valuable lesson--God can see farther down the road than we can, and He knows best how to take care of us even when we may not always understand.

So we still had our family day out together.  We still got to see lots of really neat animals.  And, yes, we still had fun even while sitting there stranded for a couple of hours. 

Our friends finally arrived in the church van to tow us out.  Pastor Isaac, one of the assistant pastors, and two other men from the church, turned our car around.  Seth was super impressed with how very strong they were!

Soon they had a tow rope on our car, and we left the park.

We will be going back though!  Hey, this guy gave us an open invitation to come back! 

Look at that wink!

And the exciting thing is that we still have most of the park yet to see!