It began in the middle of the night.  After all large trucks such as this one are banned from our streets and roads until 11 p.m.  It's a safety issue.  Long live safety on the roads!

While this narrative is about a specific incident that actually just happened a brief five minute walk away from Shiloh, sadly, it is neither unusual nor uncommon.    

So it happened in the middle of the night.  A log truck was traveling down the road between MVAN and Tropicana, on it's way presumably to the large lumber company, which is also in close proximity to Shiloh. This particular log truck was carrying two large logs.  We've seen them carry anything from four logs to one gigantic log.  The assumption is that the brakes gave out on the log truck as it was coming down the hill.  Somehow or another (we weren't there...we didn't see it happen...we can only speculate...) there was a single log truck accident.  The logs went flying off the truck, one to the left and the other to the right side of the vehicle.  These are massive logs, mind you.  Clearly, judging from the damage to the road, they bounced when they hit the ground.  At least once.  Maybe more times.  And by God's grace, when the accident was over, when the logs stopped bouncing, when the dust settled, the log truck was in the middle of the two lane road, heading in the right direction.  The log truck was flanked by it's logs.  The left hand log was completely blocking a side street.  The right hand log was prohibiting even the smallest motorcycle to pass.  Are you getting the picture?  This major road that is heavily traveled all day long and half the night, too, was now completely blocked off from all directions.  And yet, there was no loss of life.  There was no car flattened under either of the logs.  No pedestrian was injured or worse. There wasn't even a smashed dog!  AND none, that's right, not even one of the businesses and houses which are built close together and very close to the edge of the road, were harmed in any way!  You have to understand that most any time of the night at least somebody is out walking.  And there is the occasional car going by.  It is incredibly rare to find a completely empty street.  

God's hand of protection was clearly visible several hours later when Mama Alice was in a taxi leaving Shiloh, heading partway into town for what was to have been a "quick" 45 minute to an hour round trip.  When we turned off of our street to head down to the main road, when we drove past the cheif's house, we suddenly realized there was a problem up ahead.  Cars were backed up to next year on our side street.  And we could see up ahead to the main road where, curiously, cars headed up towards MVAN were at a dead standstill.  At the same time, there were zero cars heading down towards Tropicana.  Something was really wrong.  Finally Donald, my taxi car driver, got out and walked down to see.  Soon he was back to say there was some kind of large truck that had had an accident and was blocking the whole road.  He asked if there was a way through to the next street.  It looked to him like the accident might have happened in-between the two side streets.  I expertly directed him down our little side streets, only to discover that the situation was even worse on the next street over!  We had landed smack in the middle of the accident.  Ever resourceful, innovative, and creative, Cameroonian drivers know how to make a way around a situation even when there is NO WAY! And that explains why my "brief" 45 minute to an hour round trip turned into a three hour adventure from start to finish!  

Amazingly, when we were trying to get back to Shiloh, the road was cleared off.  The culprit log truck was well off to the side of the road.  There were no logs in sight.  But the badly wounded road and entrance onto the side street was quite visible.  And traffic was still snarled up.  But that was due to another incident.  You don't want to hear about that.  This is enough.  I'll stop with the boring missionary stories for today!