Jungle Survival was the Name of the Game: Advanced Base

During the next ten weeks of our Jungle Camp experience, the adventure went deeper. After arriving at Advanced Base, we had to build our own champa and furniture to live in. Bill did really well working with a local man as he put up thin walls and a thatch roof. It looked something like the photo here, with plastic on top of the thatch roof.

Bill built a bed for our sleeping bags and a table and chairs for eating. I wish we had a picture of this eating arrangement as one chair was way too high and one way too low (you might recall the previous experience of him with the block and plane) . Here we played card games of Rook and drank lemon grass tea fresh from the jungle with our neighbors, and good-friends, Carl and Sharon Kotapish. When I told Grandson Ethan this story, he did a water color of our champa in the jungle with the table and two sizes of chairs! He put in a pond too, which wasn't there (artist's license?)!

One unexpected thing we encountered here was army ants. One day while we were resting we "heard" them coming. Thousands of ants all marching toward our champa. We moved out of their way as quickly as we could, watching in fascination as they climbed up and down our walls and took whatever bugs they could find. We watched them spin and take one very large spider. It all happened within an hour and they were gone, on to the next champa. If you've never seen army ants in action, you need to watch this brief National Geographic video: Army ants in action

We also encountered a lot of jungle animals during this stay. One day I was walking down the trail and met a possum. I stopped. He stopped. I looked him in the eye and he rolled over and played, well, dead like a possum! I quietly stepped away and got Bill and another camper who came back and killed the possum for us to cook and share. First we marinated it, then we pressure cooked it. Finally it was ready for the feast. However, when it sat on the table ready to be eaten, all I could think of were his eyes--his doleful eyes. I couldn't eat a bite, though some meat would have been nice.

Learning to build and use a raft from local materials was also one of the challenges needed for survival, as you can see below.

Then there was the survival hike. At some point during Advanced Base each person was taken away from their "home" to go on a "survival hike." You had to be READY at all times. All you could take with you was what you had on you (always a machete and water jug), so you learned to have as much on you as you could for such a time as this, typically a three day trip away. Husbands and wives went at different times.

Bill had an exciting time. He had been carrying lots of stuff for many days and hadn't yet been called. But when his time finally came, he didn't have a lot on him. He was stuck out there in the jungle with scant supplies.

He heard that a local fern called cheeb was edible and he tried eating it. Later, as he dealt with his nausea, a swarm of army ants came through the area. He moved off to the side and let them go through. He said it was the only time he's seen a spider jump, and even bounce, trying to get away from the ants.

After a day or two the staff divided the group into "survivors" and "searchers". He was among the searchers and they decided on a code word to call out to identify other members of his group. The word they chose was bodega which means storehouse, thinking about food, of which we had not had enough. As it turned out the other group had chosen the same tactic and the same word, bodega. As people with group sounded the cry and heard others, they had no idea they had actually found each other until one from each group saw each other. In the photo you can see him beginning to cross the bridge, returning from his survival experience.

They had a special survival hike for pregnant women (there were four of us) and took us all together. We each were taken out to the jungle and had to construct a make-shift tent in which to sleep for the night. The weather was not good, much rain that season, and the Jungle Camp directors had mercy on us. Unexpectedly they came and collected the expectant moms after dark so we didn't have to sleep there. When I got back, Bill was feeling low and missing his wife. He had let the fire in our stove go out, so I returned to a dark and cold champa. I,  tired and worn out and very pregnant, was hungry, uncomfortable, and not pleased! Bill eventually got the fire going and we ate and felt better.

In the end, the small plane came to pick us up a few of us at a time--if the weather was clear. We waited three days at the airstrip before it was clear enough for it to land. They allowed the VERY pregnant women and the families to return to civilization after Advanced Base, while others went on to some extended village living.

Jonathan was due to arrive the end of March and it was mid January when we returned, so I was about 7 months pregnant at the end. We were ready to head home, but had come to love God in new ways for how He had prepared us for the next stage of the journey.

Wycliffe's Theme Song: … is available at http://youtu.be/Tkzu_sz3EGQ 

Faith, Mighty Faith, the promise sees and looks to God alone.

Laughs at impossibilities, and shouts it shall be done. And shouts, and shouts "It shall be done!"

And shouts, and shouts "It shall be done!" Laughs at impossibilities, and shouts it shall be done.