September 19-21, 2010

Stranded!

Yet another opportunity to attend our own church service on Saturday night and on Sunday morning the 19^th, we set out at 5:00 for Booneville, Mississippi. We had discussed several route options which consisted of going west on I-40 almost or even all the way to Jackson and then down to Booneville. Or we considered briefly going a more direct route down the Natchez Trace. However, we've driven that before and it can grow old very quickly with constant curves and no opportunities to buy coffee or go to the bathroom. The third option, the one Bobby decided to go with was to go south on I-65 to Decatur, Alabama and then west to Booneville. I wasn't sure this was the best way but decided to let him make the call and I went to sleep along with the children.

I awoke at 7:00 when Bobby used the brakes to exit toward Decatur and curve westward on the off-ramp. As we approached the city limits I told Bobby I smelled something hot. He immediately began feeling the inverter behind him and then checked his gauges in front of him. Everything inside the van seemed to be OK. While driving over the river I saw a Holiday Inn and thought about how it was right there on the river and looked like a nice place to stay. After the bridge we stopped at a light and as the noise of the engine became more quiet, we could hear noises and Bobby said he thought we had a flat. We turned right and was in front of the hotel so he pulled into the Holiday Inn parking lot, parked and walked around the van to look for the problem. He saw no flat and he began to think maybe I was smelling things and he was hearing things when he saw huge mess of grease coming out of the back end of the van!

Now there had been a slow leak and finally on the previous Thursday, Bobby had spent the whole day waiting on the van to be fixed. They simply put a new seal on the back end. But apparently the seal didn't hold and we now had a big problem. All Bobby said was, “Well, we're not going anywhere,” and then he called the pastor in Booneville. There wasn't even time for someone from their church to drive to Decatur, pick Bobby up and drive back to that service, as well as that evening's service were postponed. Then Bobby checked us into the Holiday Inn and there we stayed for the next 3 days!

Of course we didn't know we would be there that long. We had all of Sunday to sit and do nothing. I had considered the fact that I didn't get a day of rest that week and decided I would just have to do without. However, the Lord knew I needed and desired it and He gave me a day of complete rest in that hotel with nothing to do! While we waited we discussed some possible scenarios and how we would handle them. We decided that if the van would not be finished until Tuesday or after, that we'd rent an economy car, take the wheelchair apart and put it in the trunk, and pack ourselves into the car enduring the two hour drive back home. Bobby would then drive the rental back to Decatur and pick up the van when it was ready. On the other hand if the van would be ready by Monday evening, we'd just stay in Decatur until it was ready.

However, in all of this planning we forgot to remember how it usually goes with mechanics. Most of the day Monday the word we got was that they thought the van would be ready either by the end of the day Monday or before lunch on Tuesday at the latest. Of course the van wasn't ready on Monday but we thought we could stand to stay one more night and wait just a few hours on Tuesday. What actually happened was the van wasn't ready until late Tuesday afternoon. As a matter of fact, we ended up getting a late check out and waiting in the hotel lobby until 1:30, and when we realized that the restaurant would be closing in another 30 minutes, we decided to spend the money on one more meal since we couldn't go anywhere anyway and we were getting hungry.

The hotel staff got to know us and our story and were very, VERY gracious to us. We ate our own food we had brought from home Sunday morning and at lunch. We finally ate in the hotel restaurant on Sunday evening and that was the only meal the children didn't eat free. After that, whenever we ate downstairs they only charged us for Bobby and I. That was a big blessing. For the final meal on Tuesday afternoon, the staff didn't charge us anything and we had already checked out of our room by the time we ate!

Driving home, we contemplated how the week ahead looked a little scary as we spent the amount of money that we needed to make! We earned absolutely no money but sat doing nothing in a hotel room for 3 days. However, we knew that God would take care of us. We knew that we would not be homeless or go without food. I have been putting money aside for months in order to buy new living room furniture and other home décor but offered it to Bobby. You know I was glad when he said unto me that wouldn't be necessary. (whew!)

The following morning he went to check on the van sitting in the driveway and discovered we still had a leak. The first time he had it fixed it didn't work and in that case we shouldn't have had the same procedure done! We should have had a whole new back end put in. So this is what he did on Wednesday. We said goodbye to our van for several days which meant Pat Johnson came to the rescue when it came time to go to church Wednesday night. I had taken the car to an appointment but Pat came to the house and picked up everyone else. They didn't even have to disassemble the wheelchair as Mr. Pat's trunk was deep enough that the chair could lay on its side. After church I was able to take a couple of the children with me and Mr. Pat brought everyone else home.

We had an early morning prayer meeting at Cornerstone Friday but because we couldn't fit everyone in our car, I stayed home with Grace and the rest of the family went. I took my laptop into Grace's bedroom at 6:00 AM with the intentions of watching the prayer meeting live stream and sing and pray along with the rest of the church. However, it didn't broadcast so Grace and I had our own prayer meeting. I got so excited at one point I knocked a shelf off of her bedroom wall. You know things and people fail us; sometimes they leave us stranded but never leaves us stranded. He never fails us.

One of the things I prayed about was our lack of finances that week. I told God again how absolutely grateful I was that God provided for us so specifically. God didn't do anything bad to our van but He knew what would happen and He provided just the right place for us to break down. It wasn't just ANY hotel that we stayed in those 3 days without a vehicle, it was a Holiday Inn with a restaurant where we could eat 3 square meals a day, swim in a pool, use the fitness room and play in the arcade. I also told the Lord that I was not at all concerned about the fact that we lost money the previous weekend because money was no object for Him. He is the one who gives the power to get wealth. It's only by His grace that we can go out and make money in the first place. In that case I could see no reason to worry.

When Bobby came home from prayer meeting later he told me that a dear old friend stopped him at church and said he wanted to give him something. Bobby didn't look inside the envelope until later on and saw a check for $500! The following week Bobby got a call to sing background vocals for someone's recording and he came home at the end of the day with another $500! His Name is Jehovah Jireh – our Provider.