http://standoutministries.blogspot.com/
Jennifer Foster
Just as soon as you think you are in shape, take the hour and fifteen minute hike on the jungle trails to get to this place, and you’ll quickly think again. (And the family I went with, did this hike barefoot!!!)
The journeying process was interesting. The father went ahead of us – the mother, 3 sons (ages 1, 2, and 5) and I – to a point where we could not see him. This was for protection reasons. The father and mother “cooed” (like owls) back and forth every few minutes. The coo would come from the father and then the mother cooed in response, to let him know that she heard his coo and understood the direction of which he was in, so she knew which trails to take for us to “follow” him.
At one point, while the mother was cooing, breastfeeding the 1 year old, and talking to me (multi-tasking at its finest), the mother took off in a full out sprint! Baby attached, off she went, with 2 kids and myself trying to keep up.
After our 100 yrd. dash, I just had to ask what in the world that was for (other than to further remind me of how out of shape I am compared to those here in the Amazon). Her reply: “The castanha; they kill people.” She then explained that the falling castanha (a huge nut with 10 – 15 smaller nuts inside) fall from such a height that when they fall on a person’s head, it kills them.
For this reason, when they get to “castanha row” they sprint through this area, in order to lessen their chances of getting hit by one of these life-stealing nuts.
This journey gave me a good spiritual reminder… Am I as cautions with my spiritual path as I am with these kinds of trail paths in the jungle, always on the guard for spiritual dangers and seeking the Holy Spirit’s guidance to avoid them?
It’s easy to just live life and go on with our day without putting as much prayer and consideration of the Holy Spirit’s guidance into our steps as we should. When we don’t follow Him, it’s easy to trip, fall, and/or get hit in the head by a big “nut,” spiritually.
Galatians 5:25 says, “Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit” and Psalms 37:23-24 says, “If the Lord delights in a man’s way, he makes his steps firm; though he stumbles, he will not fall, for the Lord upholds him with His hand.”
Proverbs 16:3 “Commit to the Lord whatever you do and your plans will su
