wow, what a crazy 24 hours.
we've moved out of the house after a decent bit of energy.
Remaining to do:
-ship our belongings to PNG
-clean up our garage
-final walkthrough with our landlord
PLEASE pray that the trucking company arrives in time. Weather has already made them miss their schedule by 2 days. They are scheduled to arrive at 9am friday, and that is about the absolute latest they can arrive.
One of the things we have to do before leaving for PNG is sell my car.
My car has been a reliable little Ford, but I have been treating it like what it was, a temporary stop gap. I've put new tires on it, new radiator, refreshed the A/C, kept fluids in it, but did the bare minimum that I could.
IT is a 1998 Ford Contour with 70k miles on it. Not my favorite car. But it was cheap.
Tomorrow I intended to sell it to a used car lot, but alas that shall never be.
I had a doctor appointment this morning, and last night I noticed the battery light was on. I had replaced the battery in the summer of this year so I assumed I could fix the problem later, perhaps with a trickle charge.
I went to the doctor's and my ipod kept cutting out.
Then after the doctor's (an appointment which was completely unecessary) I drove towards work.
I say towards because I didn't make it.
My ipod wasn't dying out, it was my stereo. On the highway, my electrical started blinking in and out and I suddenly lost all RPM's. I wasn't accelerating even though my foot was all the way down on the gas. So I tried to get off the highway. Feeling it unwise to cut off a big rig without having any way to speed up, but seeing a hill coming up and knowing I had to get to the shoulder, I did my best, and got to an "okay" spot. I stopped and hit my hazards, which apparently weren't showing because the electrical was failing. Smoke proceeded from under the hood.
Guessing the battery died while I was driving, meant that my alternator wasn't working. I called AAA.
WE had a premium membership for many years, two of them in fact, until I realized that I never used mine. So we renewed only 1 this year under my wife's name. I kept her expired card, she kept her original. Thankfully AAA was benevolent and towed me for free.. within 5 miles of where I work.
"Transmission's out." said the driver who arrived surprisingly fast. I doubted his diagnoses.
We were already driving, getting on the highway, and the driver says "where to within 5 miles or else I have to charge you."
I replied " a junk yard." he explained he couldn't do that. Given all of a whole ten seconds to think, I defaulted to "My dad's work." Knowing full well that he'd say yes without even thinking, and be the most helpful person in this situation. I gave a moment's thought to the burden I might be posing on him, and that was it. I knew he wouldn't mind at all, if anything I minded giving him yet another thing to have to deal with today. That's how my dad is, he'd drop anything he was doing to help family.
So, 10 seconds from his parking lot, I call him on the cell, which was choppy, and all he heard was "coming by your work....in a towtruck." and he replied "okay, yes." I'm rather sure he didn't know what he was saying yes to, and I'm sure it didn't matter.
The driver was very helpful, and talkative, and soon left.
Here I was a 33 year old man, about to embark on this huge task which will take me away from my dad, and yet, I was coming to him much like I had when I was 16 and I wrecked his truck. Relying on dad again to help me with a vehicle.
It felt good to know I had that safety net. It felt scary to know I would soon be without that safety net nearby.
He lent me his truck to get into work, and as I drove off the song on the radio lyric said,
" Daddy's always been there for me,
From T-Ball to touchdowns.
Fixed my car an' fixed my heart,
When they've been broken down"
(the rest of the song didn't really apply but it was Trent Tomlinson's 'One Wing in the Fire')
And I thought to myself about how this day could have gone, how worse it could have been. Really I'm not put out or upset or anything.
We have a lot of things to do this week, and today, final details to handle. And yes, this threw a monkey wrench into the works.
Finally the day had worn down, and we got into bed.
PHEW! we did it... and then... our daughter began throwing up at midnight.
BUT praise God, we're in our hotel room, with only smaller little things left to do before our plane flight out.
During this time of stress God has somehow protected us from feeling overwhelmed, and has enabled us to get everything done.
Praise God from whom all blessings flow.
