Face Your Fears: Water Story

By Leonda George, July 3, 2009 Face Your Fears

Turning around to view the coast and the ocean that lay below me, I was astonished to see that the sun shown brightly. Where I stood the rain was coming down in bucket loads and what a relief!! Out of necessity we were hiking into our jungle home in the late afternoon (versus early morning), and on a particularly hot day in the lowlands. I was concerned. When it is that hot and humid, the energy just drains out, and at a time when it is most needed – hiking up, up, up for at least one and one-half hours; hiking in direct unshaded sunshine is a recipe for a migraine for me, for sure. So, I'd prayed, “Lord, if it is all the same to You, would You please send rain?” And so as we'd started hiking, the rain started within five minutes and came down so dramatically, that Kent, with a truckload of men going out to work in the lowlands, was driving along when one of the men commented, “Wow. Look. The rain is only coming down on the trail where everyone is hiking.” (Interestingly enough, later in the afternoon,

the rain came down in bucket loads in Brooke's Point, right on the coast, but not where the men were working with only a large tarp, where if it had rained that hard there too, it would not have provided protection.) So it rained and rained until past the unshaded part of the trail and past the time of day where it was intensely hot. Thank You, Lord!

As I hiked along, I was just contemplating God's goodness, and seeking His presence in a greater way in my life; and refocusing on what God had in store for me to do, once back in the mountains, at the heart of our mission. Thinking and praying my way along, I arrived at the river and remembered the warning I'd received from a man I'd stopped and chatted with on the trail, “the river is flooded” he'd said. And boy was it!! With all the rain we'd been having just then, it was a flooded torrent for sure and I without Kent to help steady me through it. For you see, we don't cross the river, at least not once. One has to hike and rock-boulder UP the river and across it this way then across it that way. And this time the river is flooded. One can't see where to put one's feet. Rivers and rocks. Rivers, whirlpools, near-drowning. Rivers, rocks and concussion. I have my memories....Rivers....I have my fears!!

Looking at the rushing, muddy, frothy water I couldn't help but remember just a few short months ago, I was also on a river, in flooded waters....but that time I'd been white-water rafting.

It all began innocently enough. Our daughter, Stephanie's graduation had been an interesting affair that we'd been building up to for several days. That day the rain was coming down in torrents as well, slowing the masses of traffic trying to get to the convention center for this very event. Even so, by time for the reception we'd planned for her, the rain had virtually stopped, and she was still firm in her plan to take her uninitiated parents white-water rafting on the Ocoee River. As I mentioned, I have my fears from traumatic experiences in the past, but I was determined to not cast a shadow over our daughter's day! You've got to face your fears, right?! Conquer them!! Once we'd finished feeding the guests and opening gifts, it was time to drive to the Ocoee for the adventure of our lives. I comforted myself that Stephanie was a certified swift-water rescuer and since she'd be with us, what could go wrong?

Arriving at the river, getting everyone geared up, two rafts pumped up and people assigned to their rafts, we carried the rafts a short distance and put into the water. This couldn't be too bad. This water was smooth as glass. It was here we received our instructions from our guide, “When I shout 'paddle left, or paddle right', those of you on those sides, paddle hard. When I say for you to paddle left or right and paddle forward or backward, do it this way.” Our instructions lasted no more than two minutes – we were pushed for time. I wasn't quite sure I was going to respond quickly enough to these new commands; how many years ago did I paddle a canoe?? But I pushed the thought aside, thinking that at least everyone else knew what they were doing, and I'd eventually catch on. Then we took the raft and carried it over to where we were to put-in.

Face your fears!! It was here that I got a glimpse of the water we were getting into and my fears escalated. This was a raging torrent – yes, there was white-water at the tips of those milky-muddy

waters.... “So people think this is fun?”, I wonder. “People do this all the time, and novices too, what can go wrong?”, I self-talk. Then the raft is on the ramp and we're told to get in and I realize that I am in the very front!! Me, the one with the fears. Me, the one who hasn't a clue what to do. I realize that the raft is guided by the man in the rear, but I feel so very vulnerable. It was here, before we'd even launched that I began my prayers in earnest. “Lord, I want to get out!!” But my pride wouldn't let me stand up and step out and inform the group I wouldn't accompany them. “Face your fears!!” I kept telling myself as a light mist began drifting down on us.

Then, we were off! Our guide shouted instructions I could hardly hear above the roar of the river, “Paddle left, paddle right, paddle forward, or paddle backward”, I don't know, but I was trying to paddle – at least when my paddle could reach the river....for we were on a bucking bronco, sometimes the front end so far out of the water I couldn't reach the water to paddle!! And then we'd take a nose dive down into the gully's and I was hanging on for dear life unable to paddle. It wasn't more than a few mere seconds (but seemed like forever), that I realized that sitting the way we'd been instructed too, up on the outside rounded edges of the raft, I'd be in that water in the blink of an eye, so hoping that it wouldn't upset the balance of the raft, I hunkered down inside with my legs splayed out up against the edges of the raft and my back up against a seat, to help me hang on. And was I praying!! “Lord, I don't want to go into that water!! No matter what!! I don't want to go into that water!! Please Lord, save me!! Save us!! Lord!!” I sensed the raft lurch forward and our guide frantically telling us to paddle for all we were worth, but I could only reach the water part of the time! and then I felt us sucked backward....And then it was topsy-turvy, nose up, nose down, tilting precariously to one side or the other, and always around and around! Another whirlpool!! “Lord!! I'm NOT going into that water!! I don't know how long we'll be in this whirlpool, maybe forever, but I'm NOT going into that water!!” Then I sensed that my fellow passengers were being spit out like popcorn in a hot skillet, and I hunkered down further into the raft. “Lord, please!! Save me!!” And the 'save me' wasn't only for physical safety, but the very real threat of imminent death, I definitely wanted safety in Christ spiritually. What if I was the only one left in the raft? What would I do? I had no idea what to do with a raft in white-water, even less in what we were in. There was no way to control the raft, we were flotsam on an angry river. Around and around, nose-dive, nose up so far I feared we'd flip over and I'd be trapped under the raft....and then.... I was in the drink too! “Lord, save me!!” Glub, glub. The water was freezing cold. I was stunned. It hadn't been one week since I'd been in the tropics, and even though my only choice is a cold shower each day, I was not acclimated to this! I was underwater for a very long time, praying as I was thrown about, hitting this and that with no pain (too numb), thankful for a flotation jacket and helmet, remembering the last instructions Stephanie had given me, “Mom, if you end up in the water, and you probably won't, just keep your nose and toes up. You don't want to try and stand up, or you'll get stuck and drown.” “Nose and toes.” I would if I could. But how do you get your nose up when you don't know where up is? “Lord, save me! Save our family who is all out in this! Lord, please don't let me die on this graduation day. What a terrible memory to make for Stephanie!” “Lord, what about Jilin, in far-away Philippines? Can she bear to receive the news that she's lost another mother? Lord, our people! I don't believe our work is done yet, is it Lord?! Lord save me, save us, if it is Your will.” And then I popped up out of the water, gasping for air, finding only frothy waves. And I continued my pel-mel dash down the river. I realized at some point I was on the opposite side of the river from where we had put-in and wondered what there was about me, rivers and the wrong side of the river. [When I'd met my first whirlpool as a non-swimmer nine-year old, my non-swimmer father who'd come in to rescue me, eventually decided both of us would probably not make it out alive, so placing me on his shoulders where I'd get air more of the time (and he wouldn't get any) he tried to walk as we were sucked down and around and up and then down again. My father, who was willing to sacrifice his life to save me, walked with his feet on the bottom of the river, he knew not where...and we ended up on the wrong side of the river! But, praise the Lord, my father lived too!] It is amazing the things that go through your mind at a time like this!

As I was being carried downstream, I wondered how far it was to the ocean – how long would I be in this freezing-boiling soup? Could I live that long? I desperately needed air!! As I came up again, and realized I could see the bank as I was being rushed passed, I prayed, “Lord, just get me to an eddy! Just get me to an eddy!!” Over and over again I prayed. And then there was Stephanie on the bank! She was hunkered down and she didn't look very good. She, my white-water rescuer, shouted, “Mama!! Swim hard!! Swim hard!!” Swim hard? I could barely move, let alone do a stroke. I gamely tried to raise an arm and it flopped back into the water as I sadly shook my head. The look in my daughter's eyes broke my heart. She was losing her mother, and there wasn't a thing she could do about it. I realized too, that though she was trained to do rescue, but she was also a victim. She couldn't save me. She couldn't rescue me. Again I prayed, “Lord please don't let me die, not on Stephanie's graduation day. Lord, please don't tarnish this highlight of her life, Lord....” And I continued my swift drift down the river, gasping for air, trying to grasp for something to hang onto. At one point I bumped into a fairly large rock and thought, “Oh good! It will just drape me onto the rock and I'll be able to keep my head above water. But sadly I had no strength to hang on and it just as quickly scraped me off the rock and carried me away. “Lord, get me to an eddy, please Lord, an eddy,” was my constant prayer. It seemed I was praying out loud, shouting out loud, but I was so out of breath, I'm not sure that I could have. But I took assurance that my God hears the cry of my heart, even if my mouth can't form the words. And then I was nearer the bank, and there was a branch, albeit very small, and the water washed me up onto it in such a way, that I could hold onto it. I was in my eddy!! “Thank You, Lord. Thank You, Lord!”

I was gasping for breath. I couldn't get enough air. I couldn't move and I couldn't breath. “Lord, help me!” And then Stephanie was there and she was helping me up out of the water and giving me a hug I'll forever remember!! And then she was saying, “Mama, You're out of the water, I've got to find Christiana, Casey's sister, two others in our raft. I don't know where Christiana is!!” She'd apparently looked across the river to where the others had eventually gotten out and she hadn't seen Christiana. Being the rescuer she is, and recovered enough to think clearly and thrash through the boulders and brush all along the river, she took off. And I was alone again!! Air, air, I can't get enough air! And then the second raft, which incidentally had not gotten into the predicament that we had, came over. Timothy and Christina came rushing up the bank and helped me further out of the water. After a quick assessment, Christina too mentioned that they needed to go help look for Christiana. But I was still not breathing right, light-headed, freezing-cold, not wanting to be left alone again. So they hunkered down on either side of me trying to give me some of their body warmth. Then they were saying, “Mama you need to get in our raft and we'll take you across the river and you can get in a car with heat while we go looking for Christiana.” Well, I'd already decided, no, I'd promised the Lord, that I would not go white-water rafting again if He got me out of that river alive. “No, I'm not going back into that water.” I didn't care if I had to walk hundreds of miles over boulders and brush on 'my' side of the river in order to find a bridge, but no way was I going back on that water!! I felt so like a Palawano. They can be soooo stubborn!! And I stuck to my guns. “No way am I going back into that water!!” They were consternated. What to do with me? Eventually that guide left with his raft and then I saw our guide approaching all alone in his raft. Thankfully, he'd finally gotten the raft out of 'Grumpy' as I heard them call it, and he was there to see if he could convince me to go across the river. I repeated my un-movable decision, but then the message was relayed to me, “Mama, they say they are going to turn the river on in half an hour and there is going to be even more water. Mama, we've got to go now.” At the thought of even more water, I completely lost any thought of walking hundreds of miles, if need be, to find a bridge. “How can you paddle in that mess? It just carries you wherever it wants!”

“There is a place where I can get across where there is very little white-water. It will be fine.”

“Well, I can't paddle,” I stated the obvious. They assured me I wouldn't have to.

So I got into the middle and bottom of the raft, sat down backwards (I didn't even want to see where we were going this time!! I'd already seen more than I wanted too!) And after awhile, there I was being helped up out of the raft and lumbering my frozen limbs up the steep bank to the road and the waiting arms of my husband, who'd been badly banged up, but thankfully alive!! I asked if everyone was accounted for and they were!! Everyone was alive, but most everyone with a different story of terror to tell. Christopher, who'd also been in my raft, said, “Mama, 'Face your fears' huh? Maybe fears are there for a reason!”

As I looked back down to the river, I couldn't believe my eyes. There was a person in a kayak, glibbly kayaking around in the rapids above where we had crossed over. I made a surprised remark and was told that this woman, all alone, had already packed her car to leave, when she'd seen our predicament and had taken everything out again and was patrolling, just in case there was something she could do to help. Wow! I would love to thank that woman for her thoughtfulness. I pray a special blessing on her even today as I write.

And then to the van, the warm van, where I shivered and shook, though wrapped up, and talked with my poor mother. This had been a very difficult trial for her. She'd been through this with me before, when she'd thought she would lose both her husband and eldest daughter. I'd also been praying in my desperate straits, “Lord, please no. Not today. My poor mom! She's right here. She's probably watching!! Lord, it hasn't even been a year since dad passed away. Please Lord, don't add to her grief. Save me!”

As we rode home, each thrilled to be in each others company, telling and re-telling our stories, we tried to piece together what was happening with each person at the various times. And then we found part of it had been video-taped and so we watched that over and over and over again, slow motion, picking out the various helmeted-heads popping up out of the river, mouths a gape struggling for air. And it hit me that the devil had been trying to take out four members of our family! He'd been trying to kill us, in an effort to stop God's work among the Palawano. Wow, but God had saved us!! He must still have a work for us to do; we must still be part of His plan! We'd left the Philippines for a short visit with our state-side children, exhausted in every way. Though we'd only been in the states just short of a week, it had been a busy time of meeting and spending time with Timothy and Stephanie and their friends, of getting ready for Stephanie's graduation and all the family being together, we were still tired. But somehow this thought energized and renewed me, “God isn't finished with us yet. God has a plan for the gospel to the whole of the Palawano tribe and it's sub-groups.”

“Lord, with Your enabling we press forward!! Lord, I want to be a part of what You want to do!” And this was again my prayer as I faced the rushing waters of a flooded river on my hike into the mountains that day. I wondered again, why do I put myself through these things? Why go to the tremendous effort to get into the mountains, risking major injury from a fall either off the trail or on the rocky river, the malaria that will surely attack again, the distance from children, grandchildren, family, friends, the press of publishing projects to be finished, people to mentor and disciple, church members requiring discipline, far-flung schools to be visited on trails as treacherous as this, patients to tend to....and the list goes on? Why do it? Because this is where God is working. And I want to be where He is working. And so I pray for “the courage to do what God wants done” (Into the Depths of God, Calvin Miller) and where He wants me to do it. There is a time to face your fears.

And so again I pray as I write this, “Lord, with Your enabling we press forward. Lord, I want to be a part of what You want to do.”

Post script: a day after the rafting incident occurred, we were informed that the Ocoee River had been running at one of its highest levels ever and that further down from where our trip had so quickly ended, there was a place that under such conditions is known as a terminal hole. What that means is that the river is so violent at that point that if you fall in, you will never come out alive. At the time of the mishap I honestly believed that if Leonda had experienced what I just had gone through, shewould have probably died. Kent George