4/25/04: After His resurrection, Jesus performed yet another miracle by allowing His disciples to catch 153 fish with their nets (John 21:11). Today, the Lord blessed us with about twice as many fish?large fish!
We left in the boat early this morning, and as we pushed off the shore, I looked at the six empyt baskets the men had brought, and I thought, "Wow, these guys sure are optymistic." Before reaching the creek where we were to fish, we stopped at a rock beach to prepare the Barbasco roots. Basically, we just sat there smashing all the roots of this jungle plant with a bunch of big rocks in order to somehow kill all the oxygen they contain. As the roots spread open, the smell reminded me of the green beans of Granny Brownie's Tennessee garden. They sure didn't taste like em' though.
With the roots ready, we headed down river to the creek. While Alejo and Eban set up a long net at the entrance to catch any fish that might try to escape, I walked up the muddy bank to eat some fruit with Juan. It was there in the mud that I got stuck and was soon in more trouble than when I took the pot off the stove before dinner and?sitting on the floor with an oversize spoon?ate all the Macoroni and Cheese when I was a little kid.
My legs sunk about 3-4 feet in the mud at which point it seemed to turn into clay. Juan grabbed my arm and tried to pull me out, but he just slipped and fell in the mud as well. Meanwhile, I was sinking deeper and deeper. By this point, everyone had noticed what was going on, and were all laughing at the sinking grengo.
Alejo came over and took hold of my other arm. With him and Juan fiercfully trying to pull me out, and with my entire lower body now completely burried underground, my upper body somewho fell onto the ground, putting my muddy self in a 90 degree angle. It had to be one of the funniest sights ever in the Amazon Jungle.
Finally, as Alejo and Juan were having little success in dragging me out of the now rock-solid mud/clay stuff, Eban came from behind and flipped my legs up out of the ground. We all fell down on the mud that I was at last free from, and bursted into even more laughter than before. With the net set-up and the muddy grengo back in the boat, we were ready to go fishing.
Timoteo and Jose waited at the entrance of the creek with their spears, while the rest of us went in the boat all the way to the end of the very long creek. Going over, under, and around fallen trees, we reached the end of the water?extremely deep in the jungle.
The guys took the bags filled with the Barbasco roots that we earlier prepared, and simply shook em' like crazy under the water. A milky white liquid came out and spread downstream throughout the whole creek. Within seconds, countless fish began floating to the top of the water. I'd never seen anything like it.
We then floated down the creek, gathering as many fish as possible. Cristobal, Eban, Marcello, and I leaned over the edges of the boat, scooping up fish with the once-empty baskets. Alejo and Juan stood at either end of the boat with long spears in hand, stabbing any good size fish that was out of our reach. In this manner, we returned to the entrance of the creek with at least 100 fish. We then stayed there for about an hour or so, scooping and stabbing even more belly-up fish. What a variety of sea life (or river life) we saw! It was unreal!
Beautiful Rainbow Trout, Catfish, Alligator, Parrana with some terribly sharp teeth, unbelievably long Electric Eles, flapping Sting Rays as big and round as the hole in the roof at Texas Stadium, and oh so many other kinds of fish. All of which, found their way to our boat. With six baskets, one bucket, and one huge net, all full, we came back to Masenawa with about 300 fish or so. I felt like a pretty successful fisherman. Of course they're easy to catch when they can't swim.
We spent the afternoon cutting, cleaning, cooking, and eating a healthy portion of our prize, while the men here will use salt to perserve the rest. They tell me that they now have food for at least two weeks. Praise God our Provider!
Following the fish feast, we got together again tonight to share the next part of God's story. Tomorrow, we will begin the story of Jesus, and I pray that the Lord of the Harvest will take these fishermen?as He did Peter, Andrew, James, and John?and make them fishers of men.
