Driving in Curahuasi is an adventure. People do anything and everything in the streets—drive their sheep, cattle, and pigs up them; stop to pee; run and play; spread a huge tarp to dry corn; sift building sand; and a lot of times stand still in the center and stare down cars.   There is a pile of construction materials at least every block. There is just barely enough room for two cars to scrape by one another on many streets and motorcycles and motorcycle taxis come whizzing by to keep you on your toes. For some reason, there are huge, bigger-than-basketball-sized rocks in many narrow streets and more explicably, kids put softball-sized rocks as soccer goals about tire-width apart.

Today as I was driving the kids to school, I was thinking “It’s better to just keep trying to keep moving straight forward than try to do any turns or reverses here. Hey, that applies to life!” Just keep moving forward as you can. Even when there is an obstacle– a car parked opposite a huge rock that you’re not sure you can pass without hitting one or the other, try to carefully move forward. Sometimes you need patience to wait for someone to close their car door or for that motorcycle behind you to swerve to the front. You might need someone’s help to see what just over that steep drop off or just how deep that puddle is or to direct you straight in squeezing through, but just trust them and go on ahead. Every once in a while, you make a blind turn and there is a pile of eucalyptus logs lying across the road. There is a bull that just won’t move or a big trailer parked in the road with no driver in sight. You must reverse your way out of the situation. You must admit that you cannot go forward. You may even have to do it twice, but you’ll find another way to your destination. You might have to park your car, get out, walk, and find that it’s a nice day. But there is so much to do, so much worth seeing and experiencing, you’ve got to keep moving forward, one block at a time.  God’s blessings as you press on today.

“Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me.”  Philippians 3:12