Resigned But Not Down

January 2007

There are lots of circumstances that happen in our lives that we can’t control or change. We can decide to flow with the circumstances or try to fight against them. Some things that happen in our lives are natural while others are caused through spiritual dealings as in the case of Job in the Bible. These past two weeks we had group of situations that taught us resignation without being defeated.
The adventure started actually the end of December when we took our ‘new’ Toyota van (a demonstrator model) into the shop to get the heater and defrost to work as without them it was impossible to use the van in cold weather. To our surprise the van was built without a heater/defrost system and the Toyota agency would not take responsibility for the error. We would have to go to court against Toyota but in the mean time we could not use the van to make a missions trip into Texas as the temperature was below freezing. We readied our old Dodge van that had a newly repaired motor and set out on our trip, Lucy, Simri, Vanessa and myself.
The first day was great and even though we started the trip in the early afternoon we made good time. The next morning, a Friday, we were on the road at dawn, hoping to be in San Antonio Texas by mid afternoon. Two hours down the road an engine valve jammed and the van came to a screeching halt. We managed to limp the van into the next small village where at the side of the highway we lifted the head off of the engine to replace the valve. THE Valve! A three hour bus ride was the closest place to get it and as it turned out the valve stem was too thin but it would have to do. By the time I got back to the van, seven hours later, it was too dark to start putting the engine back together.
By noon the next day we were finally on our way, at least partly. The oil had water in it from the work we had done and the partial engine job was leaking oil terribly. It was after midnight, now Sunday morning when we finally arrived at our destination, grimy and exhausted.
The mission’s conference at our home church, Destiny Church was well worth the effort made to arrive. It was the best conference we have been at because the word that we needed from the Lord was given to us there. We left for home early Friday morning, blessed and refreshed in our spirits. Our adventures were not over. Two hours out of San Antonio one of our rear tires blew to pieces. We had a good spare and in 15 minutes we were back on the road. We stopped at a Walmart up the way to buy a new tire and they said that they could do our work right away as there was no one ahead of us. Well it took them two and a half hours to get the tire on the van. I would of hated to be there when they were busy.
The story continues but I will spare you the details. Our head lights went out and we traveled for two hours with intermittent headlights and a spot light for driving. There was a major accident that closed the highway for three hours. The rad hose started leaking and the oil pressure gage went out. We were 35 km. from home and it didn’t look like we were going to make it back. It was then that we did a very spiritual thing and it wasn’t prayer because that’s what had gotten us this far. We stopped to eat! After a good hearty meal of lamb we got back in the van and it drove like a charm all the way home. Imagine, even the headlights are working again.
After a trip like this it is easy to get down. We could have blamed God for the things that happened but no. We have learned that there are a lot of things in life that we can not change. The important thing is to make sure that the things that you can not change do not change you. Many things can happen in my life that I don’t agree with but not one of them will defeat me or keep me down, I will just learn another lesson from the Lord.