The Battle Continues
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“Many are the afflictions of the righteous: but the Lord delivereth him out of them all.”
The above passage has become a favorite of mine lately. I’ve quoted it to myself more times than I can count. First off, it reminds me that the righteous are destined to face hard times. It’s a fact. There’s no escaping it. But beyond that, it assures me that no matter what I face, the Lord will deliver me. He will see us through any trial and every heartache. Honestly, I’ve needed that reminder this year.
At my last update, our new motorhome was in the shop due to a broken serpentine belt. Today, it’s in the shop again. In fact, it’s been in the shop for over a week now. The issue? We’re still not sure, but hopefully, we’ll know soon. But before I get too far into that, let me start where I left off last.
After getting the serpentine belt fixed in the middle of March, we spent a couple of days at Jason’s parents’ house, moving our belongings into our new RV and trying to get settled. On the weekend, we had two meetings in North Carolina. The first was a drop-in and gave us an opportunity to introduce ourselves to a new church and to pass out many prayer cards. The second was a scheduled meeting with Calvary Baptist Church. We had a wonderful time with this sweet church. Jason preached and presented our burden, and we had the privilege of having dinner with the pastor and his wife after the service. It was very refreshing.
The next morning, we left for a missions conference/camp meeting in Easley, SC. Just a few miles from the church, we hit a dip in the road. There was no sign warning of the dip, and in a regular vehicle, it may not have been a big deal, but in a 35-foot motorhome, it was quite the jolt. Immediately after the impact, the motorhome began making a strange grinding sound. It sounded like we were dragging something, but after a quick inspection, we saw that wasn’t the case. We continued on, and so did the grinding sound. Lovely!
We spend the week parked at the church whose conference we were attending. With meetings both during the day and in the evenings, we didn’t have a lot of time for other things, but we did our best to peck away at various tasks around the motorhome and catching up on correspondence and such.
That weekend, we decided to “visit” our home church, Bible Baptist in Pickens, SC. We needed some time with our church family and enjoyed getting to see old friends and family. Over the next few days, we continued to work on getting things situated and settled in the new motorhome. We also called about having it looked at, but the quickest appointment we could get was Friday. The news we received wasn’t good. The mechanic believed there was an issue with the rear end of the motorhome. He used a whole lot of terms I didn’t understand, but Jason seemed to know exactly what he was talking about. The gist of it was, the repairs were more extensive than he could do, so he recommended another mechanic and strongly suggested we didn’t drive any further than we had to until the issue was resolved. Wonderful!
That being Friday (and Good Friday at that), we had no choice but to leave the motorhome parked at Jason’s parents’ home while we traveled in my father-on-law’s car on Saturday morning to southern Georgia for a missions conference. The conference was wonderful, and Northside Baptist Church took great care of us. We enjoyed daily chapel services and lunchtime with the pastor and fellow missionaries. We were also blessed by the evening services which involved singing, praising, preaching, and missionary presentations. It was the breath of fresh air we needed in such a time of stress and uncertainty. The church also made arrangements for us to stay in the home of another pastor in the area, and they, too, treated us with such hospitality. We are so grateful for all the kindness shown to us.
On Monday (while we were in Georgia), Jason was able to get in touch with a mechanic in the Easley area about fixing the motorhome. The man offered to go out to look at the RV and, if needed, to drive it to his shop to make repairs. This was a blessing in that the repairs could begin while we were out of town, and we didn’t have to wait until we returned home to start the process. However, by Wednesday, he still hadn’t been by the house. Finally, on Wednesday evening, he moved the RV to his shop. Since then, progress has been slow.
Since our return to this area on Thursday of last week, we’ve been crashing at my parent’s house in their spare room. Needless to say, we’ve been quite out of sorts. It’s hard to get much accomplished when the majority of your stuff is somewhere else, and living out of a suitcase is no fun!
Anyway, as of yesterday, the mechanic finally got to work on replacing the center section only to discover that doesn’t appear to be the issue after all. Last night, he did some more analyzing to determine the root of the problem, but we haven’t heard from him yet. At this point, we’re not sure what the problem is or when we’ll be able to get our home back. It’s been rather frustrating!
On the plus side (more or less), we were able to purchase a new (well, new to us) vehicle. Our Xterra, which had nearly 300,000 miles on it was beginning to give us a lot of grief. It’s been in the shop two or three times in the past year, and each time, the repairs cost well over $1,000. Seeing it was having issues again and would need further repairs, we determined we couldn’t keep pouring money into it. It was becoming increasingly unreliable and wasn’t worth the money we were spending to keep it running.
Jason’s dad works at a Honda dealership and told us of a used CRV that had recently come onto the lot. The price was very reasonable, and with his employee discount, it was actually at a price we could buy it outright. So, last week, we traded in our poor, tired Xterra, and purchased a 2006 Honda CRV with just over 100,000 miles. We pray it will be a good vehicle for our last few months of deputation and trust we’ll be able to resell it before we leave for Wales and get most of our funds back.
We didn’t really want to spend money on a vehicle at this point in time, but God had provided the funds, and the time seemed right. We’re very happy with our “new” ride and spent the day yesterday cleaning it up and making it truly ours. We thank the Lord for providing the right car at the right time and also for giving us all the funds we needed to buy the car outright and avoid monthly payments.
Also, in the realm of good news, we’ve had two more churches take us on for support. We’ve just peaked over 60%, so we still have a long way to go, but God is faithful. We know He’ll get us the rest of our support. We would still love to be in Wales by October of this year, so please continue to help us pray that churches and individuals will partner with us and truly get ahold of our vision for Wales.
We also want to thank each of you for your many prayers on our behalf. Many of you have contacted us, encouraged us, and even given financially to advance our mission. We cannot thank you enough. These have been difficult days for us, but we think on what Paul said about his personal trials:
“For which cause we faint not; but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day. For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory; While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.”
When we get to Glory, these hard times will be forgotten. When we see the faces of those Welsh people to whom we showed the way to Christ, we’ll realize it’s all been worth it. Yes, times are hard. Yes, we grow discouraged. But we choose to keep our eyes on the Lord and on the field to which He’s called us. Our burden for the people of Wales keeps us going when we’re tempted to quit. They need the Lord. They need us to get to the field. So, we press on, and your prayers help make that possible. Thank you!