Saturday, April 26, 2008

Kind of a rough week

That may be a bit of an understatement. Monday was riddled with problems for the rest of the construction team. My Monday didn't go too bad. It started Tuesday afternoon. I stopped by a job site in the city and ran in to check on a team of plumbers. About 10 minutes later, while walking out to the truck, I heard tires squealing. I had just poked my head out the door and saw the truck pulling out and rounding the corner. I grabbed for my belt loop where I normally keep the keys to the truck... oops. I took off running through a field towards where the truck was going. A neighbor had heard the commotion and came outside to check on it. We hopped into his car and took chase, all the while, updating the police over the phone. Eventually, we spotted the truck. We pursued it for a while, but after about 10 minutes, we lost it for good. The police stopped their search shortly after. It was gone. Along with a bunch of the ministry's tools (brand new Dewalt 18v cordless tool set), my tool belt, camera, iPod, etc. My heart sank. It's gone. Needless to say, I didn't sleep much that night. Wednesday was without incident, just some processing, which wasn't much fun.
Thursday came about and I needed a truck to haul some materials for Rock of Ages and get the tools. I took the '96 F150 that we call the Spud. It was donated with a bed full of potatoes from Idaho, thus the Spud. got off the highway on my way to Rock of Ages. It was just a couple minutes later as I was sitting at a red light, I was resting my foot on the break when it suddenly lost pressure and went to the floor. "Great... no brakes. This will be fun." I was able to carefully get to the church, which was only a mile away or so. Further inspection... broken brake line to the front brakes. OK. Now what?
I was able to get a ride to our Thursday meeting where we picked up a trailer to tow the Spud back to Trinity for repair. We loaded it up and were on our way. Before we got to the highway, we hit a bump and the trailer jumped the ball, hit the ground, slammed into the back of the truck we were towing it with, and we dragged it by the chains until we could safely come to a stop. "Well, this is going well." At this point, I was pretty discouraged. A long week just got longer. After a trip to Lowe's to get the right size ball on our hitch, we were finally on our way.
All that to catch you up to where we are today. Amy and I are pretty tired. It was really hard to focus on what we were doing last week. There's going to be a little time to recover and try to catch up on some of the areas we lost track of. Amy has been there for me every step of the way, helping me cope with this, as well as helping another family on our team. Mom has mono and dad was with me, so Amy has been watching their kids. She has been great. I would really have been lost without her around.
I'm getting ready for next week, trying to put all this behind me and get back to "normal". We've learned a lot, both as an organization and as individuals, about how to handle situations like this one in the future. It's opened up the door for some good communication.
Please continue to pray that we would all see the good God has planned to come out of this. Pray for the person who took the truck, that they would know God through this. While it was partly my fault, having left the keys in the truck, I know God will provide for exactly what we need. The beauty and mystery of His grace.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Holy cats!! Welcome to New Orleans, I guess!
Man, I can't tolerate a thief. I wish when thieves were caught, they'd cut off a finger for each offense. And if it's REALLY bad, like a bank, they just chop a hand off. I think that might help lower crime. Cuz who cares about a few days in the slammer, but when you gotta lose a hand? Then you're thinkin twice about it!
Well, Phil-the-Dill, I hope your week gets better & they find your truck. Too bad you didn't have remote control ejecting seats in that thing.

Anonymous said...

We continue to pray for you both every day & specifically that God will clearly show you His plans for you. Satan is so busy trying to trip things up -- hang in there!!! (As for the keys, good grief, that sort of thing happens to everyone!)
Seriously, we're so thankful God led you & Amy to each other -- you're one of our top two all-time favorite sons-in-law! "I know the plans I have for you . . . " Someday you'll know what God has been up to all this time.
Love you guys!

JG said...

Hey guys,
I'll keep praying for you this next week, that God will provide and you will continue to see His grace.
Its really encouraging to hear that you still see and trust God in this; it puts any small troubles I have that seem huge back in their place-God's hands. He will take them in His own time.
You guys are awesome.
I am hoping to come down this summer to help out.
Hang in there!
Joe