California At Last!

Our trip to CA continued to be eventful, even after all the trailer repairs were complete. I was able to get the power converter replaced without any problem and we headed out of Fort Worth on Thursday of last week. Our goal was spend the night in the parking lot of the Hillcrest Baptist Church of El Paso. We started the drive with a light rain falling, which, though it made packing up a little bit more difficult did not concern us in the least. After we left the relative safety of civilization in the Fort Worth area, the storm that had been a mere sprinkle became a huge thunderstorm. Thunder and lightning were our companions for the next 180 miles, as was torrential rains. So much rain fell that hydroplaning became a concern, particularly after we saw an 18-wheeler that had careened off into the ditch because his wheels lost their traction on the wet roads. Shortly after passing this wreck, I myself lost traction and began to swerve all over the road. The problem was not ice; it was simply a lot of water. After those antics, I slowed down considerably until the rain stopped a couple of hours later.

Finally, the rain stopped and we had a few miles of driving without any precipitation. It was only the calm before the next storm. The next storm began shortly after we got off I-20 onto I-10 east of El Paso. All day long I had been watching my truck thermometer so that I would have a better idea of road conditions. It had lingered in the high 30's all day long, but now it began to plunge rapidly. Soon, it reached and passed the 32 mark, ever going down. Then it started to snow hard. We were in some of the most sparsely populated counties in the entire United States and the likelihood of snow plows and salt trucks seemed remote in such a place. Who expects it to snow in south Texas anyway? Yet there it was covering the roads and slowing our progress greatly. The number of prayers that went up for our safety caused the God of heaven to protect us every possible mishap and we arrived in El Paso late on Thursday night.

From there it was on to the valley of the sun, where we stopped for the night at the Cornerstone Baptist Church of Phoenix AZ and had supper with our good friends, Pastor Ben Schwanke and his wife Stacy. Then on Saturday, we completed our drive to CA, arriving shortly before 5 in the afternoon at the Fundamental Baptist Church of Escondido.

Sunday, an 83-year-old Roman Catholic woman walked the aisle for salvation. After dealing with her, the counselor led her to trust Christ as Savior! The process of unlearning 83 years of Catholicism will be a long one, but I believe this woman understood the Gospel and was saved. Thank the Lord for the Gospel and its power.