BW's almost 13yo Saturn's (140,000+ miles) clutch had been giving him trouble and then finally lost a couple gears on Sunday.  We immediately talked to people in our church for recommendations of mechanics.  Monday, he was able to get it seen, but needed to wait for some parts.

So, he took my van with almost 200,000 miles on the two hour drive to seminary on Wednesday.  The plan was for him to stop at Costco on the way home, pick us all up, drop the kids off at Awana and then I would take him to pick up his car.  On his way home the transmission on the van went out!!!!  This left him stranded an hour and a half from home and leaving us without much food in the house as he was scheduled to make a Costco run on the way home. 

But...We are praising God for the following reasons:

1) For the entire time we were in seminary (almost 3 years) and had a low if any income, God saw to it that our old cars did not break down!  Someone I relayed this story to today likened it to the Israelites wandering in the desert without wearing out their sandals.  I guess now that we have had a full time position for a month, God must have decided it was all right for us to have this inconvenience:)

2) When the van broke down, BW was in a city where he could actually get to the national chain from which we had bought the warranty on the transmission - there is no such chain in the city we live.  Also, part of the 2 hour drive is through desert where he could have been stranded!  It also didn't happen when I was driving with 4 children in the car as is usually the case.  AND he had not stopped at Costco yet where lots of food would have been spoiled - I had quite a long list(I do miss Costco...).

3) Because he had taken the van, he decided to drop some wardrobe boxes to a friend that wouldn't have normally fit into his car.    This meant he had taken out all of our carseats before he left!  He didn't have to worry about how to get them home.

3) The national chain owner was a Christian who had sent his children to the seminary's sister college so he was willing to work hard for the warranty confusion to be sorted out(see below)  AND the warranty information happened to be IN THE VAN and not 2 hours away in our file drawer! 

4) Because he was closer to the seminary, he was able to find a family who extended hospitality for him to spend the night on almost no notice - Thanks to Jay & Julie, Aiden & Corbin (for giving up his bed)!  And Happy Birthday, Julie!

5) He was able to get a rental car to come home and stopped to get our much needed "provisions" from Costco on the way home.   God had also stretched what we did have in our pantry so no one went hungry:)

6) A family from our church has a Suburban that they will let us use until the van is fixed and we can get it back.

7) That the chain is going to honor the warranty.  Apparently the chain we bought the warranty from doesn't offer 5 year warranties.  The guy we bought it from was selling these 5 year warranties (without company approval) so he could get money up front and then sold the business.  This caused quite a bit of confusion as to who was going to pay for the new transmission the van now needs since the owners had changed.  So it has taken a couple days just to determine that the transmission was originally from a company in Oregon.  The company in Oregon will honor the warranty, but will only send the transmission to Sacramento which is where the warranty was purchased.  So we have to wait for it to be shipped to Sacramento and then driven down to Southern California and then for it to be installed.  So it may be a while before we see our van again. 

8) We are getting a pretty large tax refund that should just about cover the cost for both vehicles to be repaired. 

9) Just when I was really starting to have that "I've been cooped up with no car with 4 kids and I could really use a little break from them" feeling, a dear Christian sister from our church called (with no previous knowledge of how our week had gone) and offered to watch my kids for a couple hours if there was any errands I wanted to run!!!!  Ummm, I took her up on it:)

So... even though it's been a hard week , I want to offer praise to my God.  And that leads to another praise - God has really changed my perspective and I see all the reasons to praise Him when in the past I really would have seen it as a reason to complain and be pretty grumpy (to put it lightly) for several days.  So wonderful when God gives us glimpses of the progress we are making in becoming more like Him.  It really does make a difference when we make the CHOICE to be thankful even in the midst of trials. 

"Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus." 1 Thess 5:16-18

Blessings!

-J