Page 144 - uji coba EBook INJE 1

Finally we mounted ourselves, one by one on the beam, walked successively
together, hand-in-hand or hand-on-shoulder, while the other hand holding tightly the
hanging roots (inter-twined rope). Everybody had to touch the beam surface first by
the foot i.e. the front-end of the shoe, before putting his (her) foot confidently on the
beam, stood up firmly and then shifted his (her) body aside. As we moved step by
step, when one’s position was at the middle of the beam, one could feel the strong
current of water passing around our legs. The water surface was just near by our
ankles (remember: the beam was drowned more than half-meter around the middle
point). The current pushed and tried to shift our legs from our positions. We had to
stand up firmly and hold each other tightly. There we knew why the crossing could
not be done solitarily, one after one, because the weight of one person on one’s legs
was not enough to stand firmly against the current. Moreover the weight of one
person would make the rotation of the beam cross-sections at (and around) the
middle point still large enough (too steep for the stepping on of one’s foot) which
would cause slippery (twisting cross section). By standing up and pressing our legs
together on the beam, due to the human chain, the twisting of the cross section of
the bridging tree stem could be resisted by the total weights of our bodies spreaded
along the beam.
Our faiths to the word of God: “And behold, I am with you always, to the end of
the age” (Mat 28:20b), and the understanding of the danger of walking on the bridge
beam due to the flooded river had pushed and forced us to move forward, step by
step. By putting in our hearts that the hands of the angels of God held and supported
all of us and that no harm could happen to and inflict us we moved forward until one
by one reached safely the other end of the bridge beam. GOD BE WITH US! That was
exactly what had happened with us. A huge joy and extraordinary peace flowed out
from each of the team members when the last person arrived at the opposite end of
the bridge beam and the swimmer team got out of the river without any problem at
all. Again, all glory to Lord Jesus Christ. Hallelujah!
The team continued to resume the journey, of course, with the increasing
tiredness and decreasing physical energy, slippery boots, great thirst and hungriness.
No food was consumed since docking at the riverport. Nevertheless all of us felt the
sincere happiness, heavenly joy and thankfulness to God for all His protection, saving
of us from the danger and giving us the extra strength. The more than 6-hour journey
finally brought us back to the PNG-Indonesia border near Sota. Since most of us were
extremely tired and not in the position to walk some extra kilometers again we
preferred to wait the car from Sota’s GPdI church to pick us up while taking some rest
at the Null Point of Sota. Some of us, the church’s members, went home directly on
foot. After taking a simple late supper by 24.30 WIT (Indonesian Eastern Time) the
NJE group and the Merauke pastor continued the journey by car and arrived in