Rain

Ministry Update

More than one English idiom deals with rain coming from the sky. Two come immediately to mind. The first is this: When it rains, it pours.

On Saturday, June 18, 2011, we took delivery of another trailer, having lived in our first one for nearly eight years. We had looked at the unit before and told the dealership what things needed to be done to fix it up. They had two weeks to get the work done. In addition, they gave us their assurance that they would run some tests on it themselves so as to ensure that it was all ready for us by the deadline. During the two weeks, we were away at camp, after which we returned to begin the tedious process of moving from one trailer to another. When we arrived to pick up the trailer, it was not ready, nor would it be ready for another two days. It seems that the promises of the sales team were never communicated to the service department. We should have checked things more thoroughly, but instead we were concentrated wholly on getting our things moved from one unit to the other.

After two very full days of moving things, we said our goodbye to the old trailer and headed out toward I-25 and our next meeting in Kansas. We would never get there.

As we negotiated the hills and mesas on our way to Albuquerque, we discovered that something was wrong with the truck. It still ran, but it was losing power at higher rpm—not good for pulling a trailer in the hills.

We found a place to park in Rio Rancho, NM, just north and west of Albuquerque, and began to settle in for the night. This would be our first night in the new trailer away from the campground. Operating the slide-outs, we discovered that the rear bedroom slide-out had some serious problems that we had not noticed in our preoccupation with moving. During the trip one of the drawers in the kids’ room had fallen out and broken into its component pieces, the next morning we discovered that the rear bathroom toilet leaked, and the next day my closet with my hanging clothes collapsed to the floor. When it rains, it pours.

The second English idiom comes from the time-honored pages of the King James Bible: showers of blessing. Many years ago, a man named Paul Schmidt worked for my Dad in SC. He had since moved to Albuquerque, married, and adopted a little girl. His church was where we parked. He had all the tools I needed to fix my trailer and after a few days of working, the toilet leak was stopped, the closet was back up and stronger than ever, the slide-out was completely fixed, and the kids’ drawer was back together. When it came time to pay for the repair on my truck (bad throttle position sensor; cost for the part alone over $600), he took care of the entire thing. As if that were not enough, his wife provided us with many meals while we were working on the trailer, and his little girl Monique had a great time with our children playing.

Now we are ready to go again, except that Daniel and Esther have been running fevers for a while. Please pray for their recovery.

And speaking of rain and water, we are now off to Minot, ND.