Stories from the Amazon - Bucking Horse and crazy horse

During the time of this story I was in my early 20ies and living in southern Brazil working with the rodeo ministry. Every weekend we would go to the rodeos and minister to the rodeo competitors. Our mission base was in the city, a huge house that we all shared. The girls had rooms with 3 or 4 bunk beds per room and the guys had the same thing. There were a few couples who had their own rooms and we all shared cleaning, cooking and ministry duties. We were a very close knit group. During the time I lived there the mission base was able to purchase a property outside of town to build a bigger base for more training groups and better opportunities. They sent the rodeo team to live there first so I got to be one of the first group of people to live there. Southern Brazil is more similar to the United States as far as farm land and climate go, although it doesn't snow unless you get farther south then we were. I loved living on the farm property, since I've always preferred country living. One fine day a group of teenage boys showed up at the base with a horse offering to let us buy her. I had had to leave my own horses behind in northern Brazil when I joined the mission organization so the idea of having a horse again thrilled me. They were selling her for such a cheap price it was almost free. I got permission from the base director and convinced the boys to sell her with her bridle too so that I'd be able to ride her. With much joy in my heart I named her Blessing, because that's what I wanted her to be for me and for the others on the base. My first ride on her however, bareback with just a bridle, was less than a blessing! I quickly discovered why those kids had sold her so cheap. She wouldn't go forward! She didn't want to be ridden so badly that when I got on she would only go backwards. I prayed about it for a few minutes and then I remembered something I'd read in a horse training book. So I tried it. She started going back so I pulled the reins back and made it my choice to go back and when she wanted to stop going back we kept going back until we had gone several large circles around the big pasture and she flat out refused to go back anymore. Then I quietly asked her to go forward and she did and we never again had the backwards problem again. However, then she decided to swipe me off under the low hanging branches of a big tree. We made tight circles in both directions around there until she gave up that foolishness. Then we went on the road and every time I thought we were going at a good mindset she would dart off into the weeds on the sides of the road. More tight circles each time she tried that. Finally she gave up and decided to quit trying to outsmart me for a while and we had a lovely ride and the fastest gallop I've ever ridden bareback. From then on she was a bit more obedient but she never really lived up to her name and was always a difficult horse to ride, handle and deal with. One day there was a roping event going on with some of the local cowboys. The base director had planned to go and invited a bunch of us from the rodeo team to also go since there was a group of cowboys and girls that we had been ministering to. Also the director had heard of a good horse for sale and he asked me to try the horse out because he wanted to buy her for his kids to ride. I always jumped at the chance to ride a horse so I happily went out there and found the horse. They let me ride her for a long time. She was very soft in the mouth, yielded to the legs and was lots of fun to ride. During my ride I'd met a cute cowboy and we were talking and riding around the event together. After a while we stopped the horses and were just watching the roping and chatting. The director waved at me to tell me he was going to head home and I decided it would be a good moment to tell him I thought the horse would work out great for his kids so I turned her away from the other horse and started urging her to go down the drive towards him. In the blink of an eye, all of a sudden, out of nowhere, this horse started crazy bucking. They told me afterwards it looked worse than a bronc in a rodeo. All I could think is that I needed to stay on because it was hard packed driveway rocks and it would hurt a lot if I fell off. So I rode several hard bucks all while trying to get the mare's head up because they can't buck if their head is up. Then after about the third hard buck one of my feet slipped out of the stirrup and I just knew that I was going down despite my best attempts. I don't remember much after that. They told me afterwards that I started coming off with the 4th buck but I didn't let go of the reins and instead of falling off she launched me into the air in a summersault move and I landed straight on my head on that hard packed driveway dirt, unconscience. The poor guy I had been talking to had been trying hard to get the mare to quit bucking and after she launched me she kept bucking right on top of me, stomping on both my knees. He finally got her off me and calmed down. They said someone got to me first and rolled me over onto my back, which now having been trained as a therapeutic riding instructor, is the worst thing to do, but they clearly didn't know that. I'm not sure how long it took me to wake up but when I did there was a huge crowd of people around me and I could faintly hear the ambulance siren. The base director was right there by my head and he was the first one I saw. I couldn't feel my legs and the terror I felt at the idea of being a cripple in a wheelchair for the rest of my life made me cry and ask him to pray for me. He prayed right there that God would restore my body and that I would be normal. The ambulance arrived and they took me to the hospital for a catscan and the feeling in my legs started to return except for the places on my knees where the horse stomped me. I spent that first night in the ICU with a neck brace on. The second day they moved me into a regular room and told me that all I had wrong with me was a concussion. In the meantime, my parents didn't know what was going on with me because the other missionaries just told them I was fine; in the hospital but fine. My mom was fairly frantic with worry by the time I got out of there and was able to call her. Later on in life I ended up getting an MRI and ex-rays and visiting a chiropractor who asked me what I had done to my neck. He said the damage was very great in my neck and I truly believe that God did a miracle while I was laying there on the dirt with no feeling in my legs. Later I found out that that horse had done the same thing to someone else and then ended up putting her down for her neurologic problems and they didn't want to risk anyone else's life.