Thursday, March 20, 2014

Angels among us

There are days that pass that everything runs along very smoothly... then there are days when we are reminded that God's hand of protection is surrounding us.  Many days we do not see the battle that wages all around us but it is very real.  Then there are days that we get a glimpse of the battle and have to truly thank the Lord for his grace and his mercy.... for there be  I but by the grace of God.

Yesterday was one of those days when I was reminded on several occasions how God has his angels among us to lead, guide, and protect.

Hannington, John, and I needed to head to Kampala to pick up supplies for the new building, a sewing machine for school uniforms, shoes for new students, and groceries so that we have something to eat until Mamma Kimberly arrives on Monday.  We had a bit of a delayed start due to me having a skype in grad school class from 6:30am til 9 am.  We barely had left the village when the brakes on the vehicle were making a lot of noise.  We added a trip to the mechanics on our to do list for the day thinking it was just an issue of a different kind of brake fluid that was mixed in the last time we had it serviced.  We just had the rear brakes replaced a month or so ago and when that took place they supposedly checked the front brakes and everything was good!

Anyway... we ran most of our errands all the while the brakes making more and more noise.  We finally get it to the shop... they take the wheels apart and there is basically nothing left of the rooters...  so they replaced those and the pads on both sides of the front... bled the brake fluid lines and after almost 4 hours were back on the road again.  By this point it is almost 7pm and we were all hungry as lunch had long since worn off.  Stopped by Nakumatt to pick up something to eat and then tried to head back to the village.  Due to the time of day... traffic was horrible so Hannington decided to take some of the back roads from his old stomping ground to keep us from sitting in heavy traffic for hours.  On one of these back roads a van forced us to move left and the truck we were driving fell into a rather large hole that was unseen until it consumed the front end of the truck.  Besides being a bit jostled and sitting sideways...all occupants were ok!  It was at this moment that the big truck directly behind us stopped... seeing what had happened... gets out to offer assistance. (This doesn't normally happen in Uganda... people may stand around watching or offer suggestions but very few offer to assist.)  Within about 10 minutes the big truck hooked our truck up to his bumper and very slowly and carefully pulled us out. 

Thankful that this truck driver was an angel in disguise to assist in time of need.... thankful that John and Hannington had put very strong steel "bumpers" around the front and back of the truck preventing major damage... thankful that we were in a vehicle meant for off roading so that the under carriage was well protected...thankful that for what ever reason we were just slightly delayed because you never know what could have happened if this didn't slow us down a bit... thankful that the brakes were fixed before something major happened.

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