At 8:10 last night, I made an awful discovery. While putting something away under my daughter Abigail’s bed, I discovered that we had a serious water leak in our trailer: the carpet under her bed was soaked and the smell of mildew rudely accosted me as soon as I had lifted up her mattress. That immediately explained why Josiah had been having such trouble breathing whenever we would put him to bed. He, like his father, has a hard time dealing with mildew and mold.
I surmised that nothing would be open at 8:00 on a Saturday night and so decided to talk to some of the people in my home church about it the next day. Not to worry, I was told. Wal-mart sold some of the parts that I needed so I could actually get the parts and get my ox out of the ditch, despite today being the Lord’s day. (The preceding reference is not to be construed as an offhand comment regarding my wife. Please do not begin e-mailing us with immediate marriage counseling.)
To Wal-mart, then I went, violating the third ordinance of our church: that of the Sunday afternoon nap. As the Lord would have it, they had one package left, which, though it had been opened, was still sufficient to meet my needs. Now to simply install it.
There was everything I needed at the church: step ladder, my tools, readily available electricity, silicone sealant—everything. So I ascended the ladder past the rung that tells you it is unsafe to stand on all the way to the very top. From that vantage point I could reach the top of the trailer and repair the problem.
It was while precariously perched on the very top of the stepladder that I found that the parts I had rushed to get on a Sunday afternoon were not the right parts. There was another part sold at the RV store that was to go on before the parts I bought would fit. The RV store, of course, would not open until two hours after I had left for Denver.
As if it would somehow help the situation, I decided to take a couple of screws above the light that I knew was leaking just to make sure that no water was getting in there. It took some work to do with the Chinese hand screwdriver I was using. There I stood on the top of a stepladder in 90-degree heat, dress slacks, dress shirt, tie, and all. Although no one was there to watch me, I think that I must have made a humorous, if well-dressed, spectacle.
Choir practice interrupted me from doing anything towards fixing the leak. All I got from my work in my shirt and tie was a good plan of attack. Implementing the plan would have to wait until after church.
In the end, two men from the church helped me, one man doing the work that I was intending to do after church. The light fixture on the outside wall that was leaking is now sealed and altered so that there should be no more leak. The other man has promised to look at the situation tomorrow to further improve the design so as to prevent leaks. So much for the dressed up home repair man.
Final analysis: I’d better stick to preaching.
In other news, Josiah had some real problems back in October of 2006. He spent the night in the emergency room of one hospital and ended up having to be taken by ambulance to another hospital in the next larger town. He spent a week in pediatric intensive care at the second hospital, but finally was able to come home. Today, you would never know that anything that serious happened.
The medical bills for this time were mostly covered by insurance, or else we would be strapped with an extremely large bill. There were two bills that the insurance did not cover, however. Although we gave them the insurance information, for some reason they did not get their money. The insurance has a policy that if the medical provider does not file the claim within one year that the patient will have to pay. They did not get the claim filed, so they said, and it got turned, so others said. In any case, we were left with a little over $1100 in medical bills from a year and half ago.
The Lord was not surprised, however. He laid it on someone’s heart to give us $1100 to take care of the need. Praise the Lord for His provision.
Paul
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