Double Trouble

Who knew that you could pack this much adventure, trouble, and blessing into a 4 day road trip?? I'm sitting on the back deck of a Days Inn in Tucson, Arizona, about to return to life in Mexico after a two week stay back at home in Winkler. It was an excellent time of reconnection with family and friends - to all who are reading this, thanks for the incredible support that I felt and received as I was back home for a while!

But I've been on the road since Thursday morning with my brother and three of his friends who all just graduated last Tuesday and are taking a grad trip, spending a week down in San Carlos with me. But what an adventure it's been so far. We had the opportunity to spend a night in Montana at the house of Art and Brenda (the people who run the mission center in San Carlos). They of course spend their summers on the farm in Montana and in the course of 12 hours, opened their house to us, gave us a place to sleep, fed us (and packed for us) three meals and sent us on our way. I had never been to their "summer home" and it was a blessing for all of us to stay there, even just for a short time.

The second day held for us car trouble. Cruising down the highway there were several times where we just suddenly stalled. We could let it sit for a while and it would go again but it got really bad and (after pushing the van down a busy street for about a dozen blocks on the edge of Salt Lake City) to the amusement of many other motorists, we got our minivan to a shop just in the nick of time for them to replace our fuel filter, hoping that that was the problem.

Well, that got us through Las Vegas when we suddenly had it happen again. Because of some of the time we lost, we figured we would just travel through the night. So, taking it easy we pushed on through the night and managed to make it to a small town south of the Grand Canyon. There, we waited for a garage to open and got our fuel pump fixed. Thankfully this was the problem and we've sailed ever since.

That is until we encountered in the Grand Canyon park a little rear-ending! And of course the car that we bumped into happened to be nothing other than a brand new, black and shiny Mustang! It didn't happen at super high speeds, though and all the damage that there was was two little screw markings on the bumper of the Mustang from our license plate. The retired couple who was driving it were wonderful people from South Dakota returning home from vacation. They handled the situation better than could be hoped for and we all left the scene with smiles on our faces.

I'm excited to be returning to Mexico (and perhaps a little nervous to see what kind of "adventure" awaits us today!) but over the past couple of days, despite all the crazy things that have been happening, we've been having a blast. And though it's been anything but smooth sailing we're still right on schedule and really have sensed God's hand on our trip so far. Through our troubles we've met a lot of really good people and the atmosphere (which could be stressful and frustrated considering all that's happened) has been relaxed and encouraging. So, to everyone who is praying for us, a huge THANK YOU because who know's where we would be if you weren't praying!