5/28/22 Needing A New Engine & Redwoods Reprieve
5/28/22
We made plans to visit with our longtime family friends in the Central Coast of CA. I was so excited to connect with them and hear memories about my Dad over the years of their friendship. On our way, we stopped to visit Papa Vern. That is when we got the call from the mechanic that our camshafts in our engine were broken and WE NEEDED A NEW ENGINE! That news rang loudly in both of our heads. WHOA... not what we expected. I guess we aren't going to help our friends in San Diego at the Kickstart or meet our friend who traveled across the country from Michigan to see us there. Ok God, you must have a plan, right? Well, we better stick to our commitment with our friends visit in Felton even though our news weighed heavily on us.
Interestingly there was a deep peace in both Skye and I. After a short visit we went for a hike in the Redwoods park. We left them and the tensions and stress grew a bit between us if only you could imagine. Needless to say, we walked alone in those Magnificent trees, but the tears flowed from my eyes at the awe and majesty of our God and yet the poignancy of our situation. Our home and our vehicle will be unusable for a while. God, you are going to have to work it out for your glory. Well, when we got back to our friends, right before we left, he asked us if he could do anything for us in our situation. We said we were good but asked, "Do you need any house sitters while you are gone on your cruise?" They immediately said "Yes, we'll show you where the key is." A day later we prayed on their offer and accepted.
5/31/22
After 11 awesome days with Papa Vern, morning and evening visits most days, we are off again! “We can make plans but God guides our steps.” I love what the picture on the kitchen window said as we walked in to our new temporary dwelling. I nearly cried!!
We arrived at our family friend's home, in fact such close people to Rebecca, she has always called them Aunt & Uncle. Unbeknownst to us, this tranquil gift from God is taking care of us! As our Abba Father would have it, our friends were just leaving on a trip to Sweden to take a cruise and offered us their home...hallelujah! Today we had to drop off the mechanics personal car we rented and pick up items from Rhino we need since we only packed a few days worth of stuff when we left the van in Salinas 11 days ago. It took us all day to get organized, empty and clean out the fridge, secure our bikes, rack, etc! Now, our van is being prepped for another engine. Please pray the used 80k engine will only take a week to arrive and it can be completed in less than two weeks. It’s likely that shipping from Florida takes longer but praying for a miracle!
6/1/22
We did lots of research on sprinter engines re-manufactured vs. the used engine vs. just doing an upper rebuild. We only found two used engines in the whole country that were used and the re-manufactured ones were going to be $9-10k installed. The used one would be $6-8k installed. We bought the used engine in Florida today after going back and forth with the parts place, our mechanic in Michigan and the Sprinter van mechanics.
Meanwhile, God gave me time to work on and create this new blog site while Skye's been writing material for some of our video content. AND we've been so blessed caring for a place in the most beautiful Redwoods you can imagine. We appreciate this much needed reprieve after our intensive two month discipleship training with 135 people living in community in Vista, CA.
We even took a fun afternoon steam train ride up the mountain in the grand redwoods. The "back in time" sounds of this old steam engine is such a charming sound!