7/24/23 Got Rhino back after 14 MONTHS but needs attention...onto Sacramento!

Based on the counsel of many, we drove two hours to Salinas, CA to take Rhino back finally, as it was sort of being held hostage. We paid the exorbitant bill that was more than doubled, from what the mechanic originally told us we owed. Along the way, he hadn't given us any written estimates the whole 14 months he had the van. He wouldn't return calls or emails requesting these things and explanations. We lived 2 hours away from it, so it was a real challenge. Very difficult situation. Needless to say, Skye lost his job just in time for us to put rhino's repairs on credit cards and hit the road for a few major Luke 10 trips (going out in faith, with an unknown destination, just being led by his Holy Spirit to find the people He wanted us to encounter). Being that it was in the 90's our first destination was to turn back around to the mechanic to see why our AC wasn't working after getting a brand new engine. He didn't have the machine to charge and fill our Freon and our power inverter wasn't hooked back up to our alternator. So after all that, we had to find a shop that could take us that day as we had an appointment in Sacramento, which the temps were supposed to be over 100 degrees. In a black van, that was going to be tough. Praise God we found someone to do it. After another couple of hours of patience, we headed to our mechanic appointment in Sacramento to get a catalytic convertor on the van so it could pass smog in California..

7/24 Rejoice in all things right? Thank you Lord. You work all things out for our good. We drove three hours over to Sacramento and stopped for a hike to stretch our legs on the way....

We discovered in Sacramento, that our new turbo appears to be bad in the first 200 miles, oil leaks, gaskets intake manifold, EGR system gunked up after 350 miles, transmission connector wasn't connected properly and old air filter not even replaced with a brand new engine. We were there for a few days in the mechanics parking lot, waiting between his projects, in our black van, with 100 degrees plus temperatures.

We prayed for a man named Starwalker at the Sprinter place. He is way out there with his beliefs (like us, before we found Jesus), but was open to prayer for some physical healing. So we obediently prayed for him to receive healing...stay tuned to what God did. (notice his demonic hand symbol! Yes... its the symbol used by many famous people who are worshipers of the evil one.)

7/26 After three days of hanging around Sacramento in the 100 degrees in a black van, and passing our smog check, we decided that we would take a deep breath of fresh air and drive a few hours further over to elevated Lake Tahoe as we'd never been there before. We prayed for a couple people at the falls on the way. Soon we discovered we had NO Boost up the steep grade. Our van could only make it to 40mph. In Tahoe, we had a mechanic read our engine code, that our turbo was giving us issues.

We might as well enjoy ourselves even with the challenges....

....until our next God given appointment!! During my music lessons, I was teaching in the van, I noticed this truck pulled up right next to us out of all the empty spots around. This guy was prepping for a big backpacking trip. He looked tough, smoking his cigs and drinking a beer at 11am. I went into the store after teaching and when I came out, Skye showed up from a walk exploring and was deeply engaged in conversation with him. Skye said, Dan was so rough around the edges, that he was hesitating to share Christ with him. Then Dan mentions God between his "F" bombs. Skye took this as a green light and went for it. Long story short, Dan loved Jesus, but had been struggling with drugs his whole life. After hearing his story for about 45 minutes, we laid hands on him and prayed for him for God to deliver him of his drug addiction and that the Holy Spirit would heal the trauma from his life. This big tough guy, was touched to tears while we prayed. In speaking to him a few weeks later, the whole reason he believed he was on a trip to visit Tahoe and why he believed we were there, was for him! We believe that was true for us as well!!

Before heading back over the big grade to Sacramento for the turbo repairs, we decided to visit Emerald Bay State Park and have a hiking adventure.

We left to go back to Sacramento to replace the broken Chinese made, damaged new Turbo. Went to another Sprinter mechanic to confirm the problem, as we were still wanting to believe the best about our expensive brand new turbo we paid for along with our new engine. We went back to the original Christian mechanics nearby in Sacramento, to get the turbo replaced. Guess who we saw back there? Starwalker....and his shoulder had been healed. He was impressed with us. We told him that it was Jesus that healed him but he wouldn't accept that as he still was hardened to truths of the Bible. Met some others we prayed for in the grocery store parking lot, including some Germans traveling the world in a rad vehicle.