HOMEWARD BOUND

I was awoken at 5.30am as the light began to rise over the rainforest. Tinho was telling me to ‘come on’ as we were going to head back and try to make it for the leaders meeting and Sunday school back at Maues.
As we hopped into the boat several things had already been arranged. We would be back within a month, Rui would take a weekly ‘cell’ group and we would stay longer to teach the children on the Sunday morning too.
As we sped homeward we were excited, God had been so present......seeds that had been sown so many years before had been harvested but what’s more HIS words were coming back having completed HIS will. We were looking forward to tell our families; our ‘cell’ groups; the church body.
As we passed by Saint John we saw Rui standing outside his teacher’s house and we waved and cheered to him. All of a sudden there was a massive wallop and the outboard motor swung hard to the left and we were literally catapulted out of the boat. I can’t remember that much, it all happened so fast, one minute we were looking at Rui and his outrageously bright Bermuda shorts and the next we were plunged into the darkness of the river.
As I surface and took in what was happening I realised that my boots were filling with water (we felt it cold in the morning and we were all wearing jeans and light jumpers)....Tinho swam pasted and I shout ‘help me get my boots off’!
I quickly realised the boots weren’t going to take me to the bottom but that Tinho was swimming towards the boat which was spinning around in a tight circle at full throttle. I shouted to him ‘get out of there’.....but he continued towards the boat which in my mind had now become a lethal weapon to be avoided. I shout again ‘get out of there, get out now’, at this Tinho seemed to hear and headed towards the guitar case that was floating nearby. Tinho later commented that he had gone for the boat because he realised he wasn’t going to make it to the riverbank but when I had shouted all of a sudden he realised that the guitar case was going to be his float!
By this time word had gone around the community that three guys had just died and the community came rushing out to the water’s edge. Several men jumped into their boats and came to fish us out and also stop our boat.
We got back into our boat and made our way to the community’s steps where we were offered some more petrol to help us get home. The community couldn’t believe that we had all escaped without death or injury. The whole community came out and we got the opportunity to thank them and promise that we would visit each home on our return.

So what happened? The boat had hit a plank in the middle of the river. As we had looked to wave goodbye to Rui we hadn’t spotted the plank. The plank hit the propeller shaft/column causing it to escape Tinho’s hand, throwing the boat on its side and bailing its contents out before uprighting itself again.