Writings By Phil

October 22, 1978

We got up at six o’clock, I assumed. Nobody else had a watch, and mine ticked off a guessed-at hour and minute. It really didn’t matter. It was going to be a long day, no matter the correct time!

The sawmill was on the wrong side of the river from where we wanted to go. We had to get the swamp tractor and all our gear across to the other side. We pulled the winch cable to a tree on the far side of the river. When ready, I eased the tractor into the water. Once it was on the other side, the cable was walked back across the river and connected to the trailer. When it was pulled across, we had to portage all our gear to the far side. We walked it across on culled mahogany planks. The sawmill caretaker had used the cast off wood to bridge the gaps of what was left of the logger’s bridge. It was the easiest portage we had made on the trip! The boat we floated across, then pulled it up the bank with the winch.

Any hopes that I had for good road yesterday soon vanished. As I feared, the loggers had torn it up with their trucks and tractors as they fled the coming rainy season. We encountered one mudhole after another. In everyone of them we got stuck. The slippage in the clutch got worse with each muddy delay. We became experts in removing the bell housing and rearranging the clutch plates so they would grab one more time to propel us to the next mudhole. We could take it apart, move the plates and put it back together in less than ten minutes.

Though we had covered very few miles, that short distance took us through three days of rigorous toil. It was three days of hot temperatures, high humidity, wading in knee-deep water, sloping through sticky mud, getting stuck, pushing, winching, and doing stopgap repairs to the swamp buggy. It was three days of wearing wet clothes and shoes, and for the most part, going without food. We were humans, not robots, and all that physical exertion required great amounts of energy. The more we expended, the weaker we became. Out there at the end of the world, there was no place to replenish all we gave.

We were missionaries, united with the goal of befriending a wild band of Yuqui Indians. We were willing to lay down our lives to accomplish that objective. I was sure that each of us would give up our own life to save that of a coworker. Noble as all that was, emotional pressure was building inside each of us.

I was driving. Once again, we were in the middle of a large mudhole. Matt and Paul walked ahead though the slop, trying to pick the best route for me to follow. The road was covered with deep muddy water. Through the silt-laden surface, it was impossible for me to distinguish the high ground from the deep ruts. Matt and Paul were both shouting directions to me, often contrary to the other. It was confusing! I did my best at driving and tried to heed some of their recommendations.

Whatever! I drove into a new pickle for us to overcome. The heavy treads on a front tire dug into a bank of mud. It made the buggy lurch sideways, sliding it into deep ruts, but high-centered on the ridge between them. We were stuck, but it was a different kind of stuck than all the others we had encountered thus far. Wheels spun wildly, throwing mud and water into the air.

Matt lost his temper! His voice was laced with both frustration and accusation. He said, “I told you to come this way!”

I caught his tone, and felt anger and hurt boiling up inside me. I responded in kind, “If you think you can do better, then you drive!”

I got off the tractor and stomped my way down the road, licking my emotional wounds. The pressure built over the last few days had finally ruptured our usually tolerant facades. The result, our overburdened souls began slinging mud through the fissures. It was not a happy place to be, for either of us!

As much as I wanted to put distance between us, I knew we were all in it together. I returned to the others to help them get the buggy off the ridge so we could winch it out of the mud. The added resistance of the chassis sitting directly on on the mud would only break the cable.

I refused to drive after that. Matt did, and a few mudholes later, he slid into the ruts and ended up tipping the trailer over. I could not glory in his mishap. I knew we all had to make it out together. To make that happen, I had to go back and help them empty the trailer out and get it back on its balloon tires.

We only made nine miles in a ten hour day. Most of it was over familiar road. We had walked it many times checking our gift trails when we set up camp at the pension for six weeks back in February and March. The road was decent back then with few mudholes. The sudden departure of the loggers on a rainy day sure ruined a good thing! It seemed, now, there was more swamp than good road along our way.

We left the tractor stuck in a mudhole. Walking ahead to dry road, we set up camp for the night. We crawled onto our bedding all worn out and dirty. Water, water, everywhere, and not a clean drop to bathe in! All the water along the road was darker in color than chocolate milk. There was no clear water anywhere.

I felt so yucky, both inside and out! Outside because I was hot, sweaty, and muddy. Inside because I had lost my cool with my friend. We were all frustrated with the events of the last few days. I knew that was not an excuse to spew off unkind words, walk off in a huff, or harbor a bad attitude. After all, I was a follower of Jesus Christ. I knew my life was supposed to be a reflection of Him, both in word and deed. It was not. I felt like such a failure, both as a missionary and a Christian!

I wanted to write more in my journal before sleep caught me, but decided to cut it short. Our camping spot was teeming with matiwi, a biting insect, small enough to go though the mosquito net. My candle seemed to attract them. It would be a long, hot night, even if the hungry hoard left us alone, which they would not!

October 23, 1978

Today, the road was so bad, had we been in a cross country race with a sloth, we would have lost! We hardly moved. Matt drove the swamp buggy. Paul became the winch man. He was always ready to pull the cable out and hook it around a tree each time we got stuck in the mud. I walked ahead, slopping through the muddy water. My job was to find the high ground and point the way to the others.

Reality was, I was retreating from my cohorts, saying little, just keeping out of everybody’s way. Conflict nipped at our heels, a persistent pursuer that I hated! It was not because I was more spiritual, but because I did not do well in tense situations. Inside, I was still smarting from yesterday’s confrontation. I wanted to avoid a repeat of that!

With the drone from the swamp tractor motor, and the splashing of my feet through the water, I could not make out all the words exchanged between Matt and Paul. From their tone, a number of times throughout the morning, I knew hot words, like ballistic missiles were flying between them. Those bursts of anger were always followed, a short time later, by an apology. They were keeping short accounts, not letting the sun set on their wrath. I knew that was what God wanted me to do, too. Instead, I felt justified to continue my little pity party, even though there was no joy left in holding it tight.

In the early afternoon, the buggy was again stuck in the mud. I had walked ahead to a short stretch of dry road. I sat down on the dirt in a pathetic shadow. The shade did little to lower my body temperature, the air being so hot and humid around me.

Paul came sloshing through the water and came ashore, followed by Matt. When they stood by me, he said, “I can’t go another day like this. I think it best if some of us walk out to Yapacani. We could hire a logger and tractor to pull us the rest of the way to the railhead.”

“Its best to get help!” Matt chimed in. “So we don’t kill each other!”

We had been going with almost no food for the past three days. We were surviving on handfuls of peanuts, raisins, some hard candies and the stuff that the folk at the sawmill gave us. Everyone was hungry. We were spent physically and emotionally. Our nerves were on edge, and at the slightest provocation, a temper could be lost, fracturing fellowship and even friendships.

I did not want to kill someone, not yet, anyway. However, the hopelessness of our situation was taking its toll on my emotions and well being. I was shriveling up into a melancholy ball of despair. I could not go on like that, either. I took a longing look at the large-leafed jungle plants growing thick by the side of the road. If I could just crawl back in there, out of sight and out of mind, curl up in a fetal position and die, what a relief that would be!

It was but a fleeting thought, spoiled by the fact that I knew that being smothered by jungle leaves would cut off all breeze. At least, on the open road a occasional wind would caress my sweaty brow. I didn’t want to go like that! I wanted to die in comfort!

Paul and Matt volunteered to walk out to Puerto Yapacani and get help, and of course, bring back some food. I really didn’t want to walk the three or more hours out to civilization. I questioned what good I could do there, since I spoke so few words of Spanish. Besides, someone had to watch after the puppies until help arrived.

Before they left, I dug through my pack and pulled out the can of Swift, a Spam like meat I had been hoarding. The boss man at the Phillips Petroleum drill sight gave it to me just a few short weeks before. I was saving it for a rainy day. There was no rain in the forecast, but we had sweated buckets in the last few days. Sweat dropped from our noses, and chins. That was almost like rain and would have to do! I put the key on the little metal tab and turned it. It tore a ribbon of tin from around the can. I cut the the meat in three pieces. Maybe it would be our last meal. I hoped not. Spam was hardly my choice for a last meal. It amazed me, though, how good a mystery meat tasted when one was hungry!

I watched Matt and Paul walk down the road and out of sight around a corner. Now, I was truly alone! I turned my attention to the dogs, If we were hungry, they were more so. I cooked them up some dog rice mixed with dog meal. We didn’t have much of that, either!

I felt dehydrated. I was always thirsty, and streams of clean water had ceased to exist. I had about a quarter of a gallon of portable water left in my canteen. There was water all along the road, but it was laden with silt and looked like used motor oil. I walked a far piece down the road looking for the clear stream where we got water last February. We used this road for a gift trail back then. I could not find it and returned to the buggy overheated and very thirsty. I felt so faint.

I dug out my can of beef stew (from the man at Phillips) and ate the whole thing. It was the last food I had, so I hoped Matt and Paul would make it back the next day. Immediately, I felt better and decided to work on the swamp buggy until dark. Better to occupy one’s hands and mind, than do nothing and let imagination fill me with dark thoughts about what might happen to someone completely alone in the vastness of green hell!

I waded through the mud, and unhooked the trailer. I pulled the winch cable out all the way and hooked it to a tree. Back through the mud I went, started the motor and put both the winch and the tractor into gear. The buggy walked through the mud and was soon on dry land. When I pulled the trailer forwards, it came, but something did not sound right with the buggy motor. I hooked the trailer back up to the tractor, and put it in gear. It made it to the next mudhole two hundred yards down the road. Once in the mud, it got stuck, again.

As I worked to free it, I was startled when a terrible racket started, emanating from the clutch housing. I got the thing shut off and opened the bell housing. I discovered one of the metal fins between the clutch plates had broken loose. What was left of the clutch was disintegrating even more. I removed the fragmented pieces and put it back together. I was thrilled that it still worked, at least as good as it had that morning. On my walk up the road in search of clear water, earlier, I learned that I was not far from good road. I planned to to make a run for it in the morning.

The only time my feet were dry was at night. We had worked in mud and water so long that the skin on my feet wrinkled. It had turned white, sickly white, like a fish’s belly! My toenails were sore, and soft. If I did not get out of the jungle soon, my clothes would rot off my body! I set my tent up, and threw my sleeping bag inside.

I removed my clothes and hung them on a low branch outside the tent. I knew they would not dry before morning. I already dreaded the yucky feeling that pulling on cold, muddy clothes would entail, come daylight. I found the cleanest mud puddle around and gave myself a bath. The water was still gray in color, but at least the action of bathing implied that I was clean!

I hoped we had left the range of the matiwi far behind. Last night they chewed on me all night. Their bites made me itch so bad, that I could not sleep. I tried escaping into my sleeping bag. Covers made me sweat so much that sleep still evaded me.

I was alone in the dark. Alone in the wild jungle of Bolivia. This was the area where we thought the Indians would be last wet season. I hoped they would not show up all of a sudden like. After all, the woods had been free of loggers for two whole days. Then there were jaguars to worry about! Because we would be traveling through a lot of little towns on our way to Santa Cruz, we thought it better not to bring a firearm. I would just have to trust in the mercy of God for protection and that of three puppies. Strange, just a few hours before, I wanted to die. Then, with a belly full of beef stew and having a make-shift bath, I wanted to live.