Click! That’s the sound our car made when we tried to start it to go and visit friends on Saturday night. Nothing we tried produced anything more than that sound again and again. Terrific! No hint, no warning, just a dead car, just like that. Thank God our hosts had a vehicle to lend us for that evening and to go to church the next day.
It turned out to be the battery. For some reason, it decided to just up and die on us right then and there. Which was a blessing. Why? First of all, it gave us time to get alternate transportation for Sunday morning. If it had happened when we were in a hurry on Sunday, we’d have missed the presentation we were scheduled to do at a supporting church. As it was, we were nearly an hour late in visiting our friends on Saturday night. And secondly, it happened at a place where we had time to diagnose and fix the problem by getting a new battery. Had we been on the road somewhere with a tight schedule…
It was great to see some familiar faces at High Pointe Baptist Church, as well as to meet some new folks. This was the church we attended for two years when we did our linguistics studies at the nearby SIL Center and the University of Texas at Arlington. They even allowed me to teach a Sunday School class for younger adults, most of whom had families similar to ours at the time. Pastor Toby Snowden introduced us to the congregation. He remembers us for two things. One was when the Toronto Blue Jays beat the Texas Rangers to win the World Series back in 1993. We had just moved back to Canada from Texas and I called him up to rub it in. Considering the record of the Blue Jays, I just had to capitalize on that one, brief, shining moment!
The other thing he remembers us for us our first presentation at the church, just prior to returning to Canada. When I asked how much time we had to do it, he asked me how much time I wanted. However, he added that the more time we took, the lower the chances of ever being allowed to speak at the church again. We both laughed and he said that he was only half joking because the last special presenter they had was scheduled for 15 minutes and took nearly 45! So I thought for several seconds and answered, “Please give us twelve minutes.”
At the appointed time, Kathy & I spoke and completed our presentation in eleven and a half minutes. Pastor Toby looked at us and said, “I don’t believe it! You two can come back and speak here at any time!” And we have :)
Last night, Steve & Elaine had an open house at their place for anyone who wanted to drop by, say hello, and talk with us. About a dozen friends and acquaintances showed up and we had a wonderful time together. A few said that it was the first time they’d seen each other in years. They encouraged us to come back so that they could do this more often!
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2 comments:
Hi Mike, you mentioned your blog on Woody's page, so I came here to find it. Sorry to hear about your battery. Is this the same car that inspired me to send you the Mauldin cartoon?
Yeah, it is Steve :/ What a bummer! But I think it was the original battery in this 2000 Chev Impala. Eight years for a normally 6-year battery is not bad, especially considering that I drained it dead twice when I was struggling with electrical problems this past winter.
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