I have planned to write an entry about how you know you are a rural pastor. I plan for it to be fun and reflective about some of the things I have learned here in Southwestern MN. Today I have learned about more to put on this list, but it is SOOOO very funny that I have to share it with you before my year is up and I write that list.

As I type this I am stuck in the mud of a minimum maitainance road waiting for a parishioner and her husband to come extract my half buried car from the muck. Now if I had only called for directions instead of googeling it I would have been fine. Or even if I had stopped at the turn off when I saw that it was not so much a road as a more packed lane of mud than the surrounding fields and called them I would have been fine. I had, however, forgotten to write down their number. So instead of calling other people to get it, I just figured I would get through it on my own.

I actually made it quite a ways with my tough little car, that was once white. Then I saw it. Looming ahead of me was a giant puddle. To this Arizona girl it looked more like a lake. I know enough to have known at the time that this was a bad sign. I tried to think of a way to turn around. But the ‘road’ was so deteriorated that I feared if I veered even slightly off of the previous tracks I would be stuck in a field. At this point I saw no options. So I inched forward.

BIG mistake! At the very least I should have backed up and built up some speed to try to get through it. Instead I inched and crawled, and then suddenly nothing.

Did I call anyone at this point? No. I am a strong intelligent woman and I have gotten myself unstuck before. So I tried to rock my way out by going back and forth.

Note to you all: this does not work in midwest-farm-field-early-spring-soggy-mud.

The only direction I moved was farther into the ooze.

So here I sit, shoeless because I stepped out of the car to try to see if I could get out and the mud ate my shoes. Literally I had to fight with the mud to get my foot out of one of the shoes and it disappeared below the service. I do not need it back enough to have actually dug for it.

So I gave up. I called Shalom Hill Farm and got the number for the members' whose house I was on the way too and called them.

Well now I see my hero coming. No knight in shining armor on a white steed for me, no chugging towards me are two farmers in rubber boots in a muddy tractor. I can live without the white knight! These guys are practical.

Gotta go....

So the saga was not quite over I learned. After hooking up a rope to my car I learned that my battery had died as I sat there with the radio on. They had to tow me all the way back to their farm. Oh, and the tractor was backwards because they would have gotten stuck trying to turn around also.

But the beauty of small town and rural life is that they hooked my battery up to a charger that they have in the garage and let it charge while we shared lunch and laughed over the whole incident.

I was just beginning to think I was starting to loose the ‘city girl’ aura!