I want to try to post a little more frequently as we head west for three weeks. But I can't leave out last weekend in Indiana. We made something like the 6th visit to Revelation Chapel northeast of Fremont. We just LOVE this place. There's an excitement within this group as they welcome us each time and they respond with so much enthusiasm. And they always eat well afterward. It's always a little challenging when a Saturday night service is spaced a couple of hours away from the Sunday morning service but we drove up to Muncie the day before, spent the night, drove further north to Fremont the next evening, and then had to drive the 2 hours back to Muncie after the service on Saturday night. The good thing was we were only 5 miles from the church on Sunday morning.
To sing in Muncie again caused us to reminisce to January 2008 when we first began singing as a family. The funny thing was, back then when we started from home pointing our minivan northward on Saturday morning, we didn't know we were going to be ministering as a family. But on the drive north Bobby told me he believed God was telling him to take his family with him in ministry. Bobby sang at my Dad's church east of Lagrange on Sunday morning and then we drove south to Muncie to sing at Victory Temple pastored by Bobby's first cousin, Rick Bowen. Bobby solo'd the entire service and I gave a short testimony. Pastor Rick prayed over us that night at the end of the service. We were officially commissioned by God and man!
So to return to Muncie for the first time since 2008 was meaningful for us, although we were less 2 children as Landis and Hope are not traveling with us now. We had a great service there and were reacquainted with a few people and saw some new faces. I was especially blessed to befriend the minister of music, Bonita Petersen, a very gifted pianist.
Sunday night we revisited Anderson Church of God of Prophecy, pastored by Charles Barker. He too has become a friend as we have ministered there several times in the last few years. At the close of the service last Sunday night Pastor Chuck asked us to stand at the front as a family and called others up to lay hands on us and pray for us. I was touched that he took his time praying for so many aspects of our lives and ministry and included ALL of our children, not hesitating in recalling everyone's names and lifting each of them up to the Father.
Headed to our hotel in Fishers that night, we experienced trouble with our van. The throttle body was failing / going out...I don't know how to say it. We had a little trouble earlier this year on our way to Shepherdsville, Kentucky and it acted like our shuttle did in West Tennessee several years earlier. We knew what to do - pull over, kill the engine, wait 60 seconds, pump the gas peddle and restart the engine. We did that on the way to Shepherdsville and we got back home with no other instances. Well, you know how it is. If there's no evidence of trouble you tend to forget there's a problem. Until the problem shows up again. It showed up Sunday night driving from the church to our hotel. The van stalled probably 6 times but we finally got to our room, exhausted. The next morning we prayed before we left the hotel and expected the best but it was not to be. We hadn't even driven a mile when the the van stalled again. My thoughts were like this:
"Why didn't we get this fixed earlier so we could avoid being stranded and have to possibly stay another night (or more?) in a hotel? What if we DO have to stay in Indy while we wait for some part to be ordered? We've got to leave for a 3-week trip at the end of this week. Is this delay going to mess us up? If we could somehow get home, there's no way our busy mechanic is going to be able get us road-ready in time."
You can see where my faith was. But I also resolved not to get upset and trust that God would take care of us if we rested in Him.
I looked on my phone for a mechanic near us. Safe Haven Auto Mechanic was the first name I saw and it was less than 2 miles from where we had pulled off the interstate. I called him and he said he'd look at it at 1:00 if we'd come by then. Well, it was only 10:30 but I suggested to Bobby that we drive to the place immediately and just make sure we could find it so as to waste no time later. Bobby didn't stop with just finding it, he went inside. When the mechanic learned we were already there, were from out of town and had children he dropped everything and got to work. We mentioned getting a hotel and Dave quickly said there aren't any hotels around that he'd stay in. It was pretty cold so he told us we could wait inside. However, we weren't there 45 minutes and he had our van up and running again! Bobby told me later that after telling Dave that we had prayed and that HE was an answer to our prayers, Bobby could tell the comment got to him. He didn't see tears but he could tell it effected him. As we drove off I told Bobby that had we tried to get home or had our van fixed at home earlier, we would've waited in line and been without our van for a couple of days. The way it happened was perfect. We had our van fixed much quicker than expected and we were able to point a mechanic named Dave to Jesus.
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