Rubbish Party #247

Life is always full of adventures, sometimes a little more obvious than others. A couple days ago we were taking my parents, who are visiting for a few weeks, to see a small city in the mountains. The weather was less than pleasant as we started out, but we hoped that the sky would clear up and our visit would be full of sunshine.

Well, the weather got worse and worse. Clouds turned to thunderheads and the rain went from sprinkles to downpour. It was pretty exciting really because this area really, really needs the rain or otherwise they don't get to eat. It was also exciting because our van has a few special quirks that really shine in the rainy weather.

First off, the heat doesn't really work. It will come on and then go of at random. Making it pretty chilly. This also means that the defrost doesn't work. As you know when it rains and you don't have a defrost its pretty hard to see the road. The other special gift our van has is it leaks. There use to be an antenna attached to the top middle of the van. Well that spot as rusted through just a bit and when it pours, it rains in side the van too. Lucky for me I was sitting right under the drip. Also lucky for me I had a rain coat.

So here we are traveling along, my mom was holding papers towards the windshield to help direct the little bit of air so Joey could see. We were all really bundled up so we wouldn't freeze, and there were occasional drips in the back seat. We were laughing about it quite a bit actually. When we finally got to the city we were headed to we decided that since it was raining it really wouldn't be any fun to hang out there. Its a fun place to walk around, if you can't walk, its no fun :)

Off we went to another city. As we went the rains continued and a three hour lightning storm began. It was incredible. The lightning was so bright and beautiful. There was so much rain we were driving through rivers and over piles of rock and mud that had washed down. There was still the defrosting issue and the dripping too. And then, Josiah decided he didn't want me to hold Benson any more, he wanted me to hold him. Well, Benson was eating so that wasn't really an option, so along with the storm we endured a pretty big tantrum from our little angel.

As the rains let up and the road cleared we were laughing about the rubbish party we had just had, when all of a sudden our front right tire blew out! Yes, I am serious, it really happened. We had a tire and a jack but we couldn't find the lug nut thingy (there is some serious girl speak for ya!). Joey decided to flag down a car and see if anyone had anything.

You know what God is so good. A taxi pulled over and I swear this guy had an entire auto parts store in his trunk...ok, maybe just the tool section. He stayed and helped us get the tire off, get the new tire out of the car (kinda difficult without the right tools) and then he followed us to our turn off for the city making sure that we had everything we needed.

It was so great. Here we were in the middle of a long trip where it seemed like everything was going wrong and God provides an angel to take care of us. We finally made it to the city after 12 hours on the road. We were cold, tried and a bit wet but God had carried us through and blessed us along the way. Aren't rubbish parties great?!