I’ve been trying to figure out what to write for the past few days but I noticed in two weeks of doing the same thing in the morning, waiting for the bus, I’ve seen a lot more then you would have ever thought to see at a bus stop.
Usually we wait for the bus for about an hour everyday, sometimes less, sometimes more. There’s no set schedule for the bus so we’re lucky when one shows up. (This whole waiting process is so we can get to the orphanage, which is about 30 minutes from Nauta.) As we wait there’s a lot of commotion around us, as van drivers rush to fill their vehicles with travelers to the main city of Iquitos. When you’re finally away from them and on the eternity like bus ride out, you have a lot to look at and think about.
As we drive people are getting on and off the bus on the only road from the city to our desolate town. But as we drive, and stop constantly, these people are getting off in the middle of nowhere. Michelle, Steph and I have had many good laughs about this, because their homes are so far deep into the jungles of Peru, it tends to look as if they’re getting off our bus to live in the few trees over here or up in the hill over there. Since we’re the only “Gringas” usually traveling on the bus, many of the natives want to know what our stop is. So it becomes quite fun to do this on the daily.
Yet after watching these people [a lot of the same people] get on and off the bus, I’ve noticed something in my life and maybe in yours.
See driving every morning on the same road, I still find new things to look at. That’s also he same in my life. I never knew some things about myself that God’s begun to show me on the past few drives.
Sometimes we’re on this bus, with many people we know and some we’ve never met, and as life goes on we find a place in which we’re comfortable in getting off, some just along for the ride. Society in America says “You must look like this. Do this to be ‘cool’. Act like yourself but don’t show too much of yourself because that might not be good for anyone, go to college to strive to be this thing that you might already see or that might need work. “Society never says to get off the bus and work on an area of your life that you’ve been pushing to the back burner. Society wants you to be just as mushy as the last person so that your personality becomes sour and you begin to fade into the seats. Gods saying “please son/daughter this next stop may not be what you thought. But you need to get off.” Being on this trip has showed me finding who I am is more important than hanging out on the bus for a few millenniums and seeing what might be nice sights to see, but it isn’t exactly what’s needed in your journey with God.
Sometimes telling society to put a sock in it and getting off the bus can be the greatest thing you’ve ever done. When you’re tired of bouncing around and getting whipped around corners that life didn’t show you were coming, it might be a good sign to get off and figure out what’s better.
Follow the rules of society or being determined to be different and give God all the faith in our lives, because sometimes getting off the crazy bus of life can be the best day of your life, just tell the driver, it may not be the smoothest stop or right where you want it to stop, so you might have to walk a little.
All you have to say is,”Stop the bus, I’m getting off here.” God will give you the strength you need just put your faith in him, I promise you it’ll be the best decision you’ll ever make in your life!
