the taxi driver, our hero

It all started like any Saturday night would.

Ok, that's a lie. But the day was beautiful, hardly a cloud in the sky. Jensine and I decided we were going to try out this new contemporary church service called Sozo located in an old movie theater in one of Guadalajara's many strip malls. We enjoyed a pleasant jaunt over to the mall by foot and may have even commented on the gorgeous weather.

The worship was phenomenal as dry ice floated throughout the dark room and the lights flashed in kaleidoscopic colors and we sang our little hearts out to our King. The preaching was great and touched on the need to "die to ourselves" before following Jesus. Jensine left a little early, so around 9:00, Traci, Christen and I made our way upstairs and to the door only to discover that it was raining. Not just sprinkling, but POURING BUCKETS as if the Heavens had opened in all their might.

The streets looked as if the Mississippi River had come to Guadalajara and we were left wondering what we ought to do. We were trying to find cover under the awning of a furniture store, but the wind kept whipping the awning this way and that; it was as if we were in a water park and standing under the mushroom fountain wanting to get soaked but screaming every time the H20 splashed us unexpectantly.

We were trying to decide if crossing the street would be safe as we were without rafts and without lifejackets. (i may be exaggerating slightly, but not much). To our great pleasure, a taxi turned down the street on our side. We hailed it as we forged through the parking lot trying to get his attention. I am pretty sure he had no idea what to think when three sopping American girls entered his yellow car, nearly hysterical and unable to stop laughing due to the saturated situation at hand.

When we told him where we needed to go, he nearly asked us to get out of the taxi. His explanation was that the streets were full of not only traffic, trying to get home, but the streets were flowing with water. (G-town has yet to implement a drainage system in the streets). We encouraged him to take the back roads, which we did, barely.

There were cars everywhere. By the time we got to the main street homeward bound, I felt like we could have been one of Oregon Trail's wagons asked to ford the river. There were cops everywhere trying to direct traffic by blowing their whistles from under their gigantic ponchos that kept blowing in the hurricanish wind sometimes blocking their own line of vision.

We made our way across the street, slowly and surely. I couldn't figure out if I should have my window open in case of evacuation or closed to prevent the water from infiltrating my lap. This first crossing of the flash-flooded street became the least of our worries.

We soon discovered that not only was the flash flood occurring due to the torrential amounts of rain falling from the sky. But at one point, when we were stuck in a "puddle". We looked out to the right of our window to discover that the flooded street was bubbling. I repeat, bubbling. It appears that some of the pipes had burst and were adding their share of water to the already hydrated streets.

It was at this point in the adventurous ride home, that we got stuck. We tried moving forward. We tried moving backwards. It wasn't working. A friendly police man in uniform came up to the taxi driver's window and more or less said. "Sir, you are not going to survive this street. You need to jump this curb in order to keep going."

So we did it. We somehow proceeded to reverse and then with barely a blink of an eye, we jumped the center curb. Our ride from here on out, was more or less painless. Although we couldn't help but notice the entourage of vehicles stuck in the flood. Christen reported that one of the vans swimming in the water had people climbing out of the windows to escape their unfortunate pitstop. There were city busses that were no longer carrying their passengers or themselves anywhere due to the water that was rising above the wheels.

When we eventually turned into our neighborhood, the 3 of us girls looked at each other and said with our eyes, "thank you Jesus. We made it home." It was only natural as we paid the cab driver, I told him in all seriousness, "Thank you sir, you are our hero tonight. Good luck getting yourself home."

And that was what started as a normal Saturday on the town and ended with an adventure to add to our crazy life in Mexico.

Viva.

(p.s. for the one time in my life, i had no camera on me to capture this evening, use your imagination please.)