COUGAR!

It was Sabbath night after sundown (which happened to be at 4:30) This also happened to be last night.
So there were several activities to do, there was a health video at the school building and there was capture the flag. I chose capture the flag! But unfortunately not many others did, there was a total of 8 of us but we still went out to play. The boundaries were huge. From the saw mill to the dorm. Me and Heather were assigned the duty of guarding the flag at the saw mill building. It was kinda scary....it was dark and we couldn't see anything. But gradually our eyes ajusted. :) BUt soon after we got there we heard this noise, we stopped to listen and heard this "meow!" We both nearly jumped out of our skin as a cute little black cat came trotting out of the building! We were very glad it was just a cat and quickly settled into ditches on either side of the road to await the enemy. We were there for quite sometime when we heard someone coming. Unfortunately the cat was being very loud and running from me to heather meowing and purring. BUt alas it wasnt the enemy at all! The rest of our teammates (CHelsea and Tristha) had gotten lost in the dark. SO we switched places and me and heather set out on the journey to find the flag which was at the tree house.
We came to the first freshly plowed field and knowing that the enemy could be anywhere we crawled across the field on our hands and knees until finally reaching the tall grassy hill where we could hide then we stopped in our tracks. There was the enemy! Walking along the top of the hill, we waited until she was out of sight, walking towards the sawmill and then we booked it up that hill, crouching and running, trying to be quiet. Then a few feet from the top heather pulled me to a stop. "There's a guard 10 feet from you" I looked around in a panic and saw a figure crouching in the shadows, "well" I said "lets tag her before she tags us" I sprang into action and ran at her, she jumped up and ran at me but my hand whipped out and (I didn't mean to get her in her face) tagged her face....very hard. I felt really bad! But after all...this is wartime.
We soon figured out it was dawn. and now she was on out team! SO we all set out across the field but slowly realized the guards would be able to see us since the school building lights were shining directly on the field. SO we set to rolling...I got really dizzy but we rolled across quite a large portion of the field until we got so dizzy we had to stop and find our senses. Then we crawled, just before we reached the fields edge we heard Ellen yell that time was up and we had to go back to the dorm. It was disappointing but we still had fun! So we set off in two groups, we walked in the middle of teh feild while the people comign from saw mill walked farther away on the edge of the far field. We were just approaching the hill to the dorm and were planning to walk straight up, when we heard a noise and stopped. A growl, no...like...I cant describe it but it was the sound a cougar makes. And a rustle in the tall grass. Someone bolted but I grabbed her before she went too far. me and heather barked out directions "Keep calm! Don't run! Everybody make a lot of noise but DON'T SCREAM!" SO we all started singing "we have this hope" while walking quickly away, glancing behind us to make sure we wwere'nt being followed. We reached the otehr group whon were talkign and laughing and I yelled the first thing that came to my mind "theres a l-lion behind us!" They laughed and said "yeah we know here's the lion" and threw the little black cat at us. "NO! there's a mountain lion right behind us!!!" I nearly screamed. We all stayed in a little group until we reached the orchard, then we rn. I have never run so fast in my life, I didnt know I could humanly run like that. All I remember was trees whipping by as I flew to the school building. They weren't finished watching the movie but I burst in the auditorium (did I mention I was wearing camo pajamas, a camo head scarf and war paint?) I burst in and saw John L turn around I quickly stammered out "c-c-c-cougar! I-i-i-in the field!" John jumped up and came out to the lobby and a whole stream of boys came with him, I think the movie emptied because everyone was out in the hall! I explained what happened and he had me call Mr James and I told the story again. MR James said he'd drive out there to see what he could see. He radioed John sometime later to tell us that it was a prank some girls had pulled on us. I was smoking mad!
Long story short it wasn't the girls. They were in a completely different place, far away from us, making different noises. This thing was 10 feet away.
We talked it all out long into the night before we discovered this fact. I am amazed at how God protected us the whole night! I was crawling through the very same grass. I could have came upon that cougar all by myself, or it coudl have pursued us. But God was there protecting us all the way throguh. And nwo we know that he was protectign us all the other times we've played night games, or goen runnign before light. He protects us every day and we dont even know it. Praise God for showing us what he has been doing!