Hi Guys,
        You know that old saying, "every cloud has a silver lining?"   Well,
I thought that you might like to hear the story of the silver lining
of our car problems.  It's kind of cool.
        Our church has begun attempting to connect with kids who have grown
up in the foster care system, but have now turned 18 and are being
turned out, so to speak.  I didn't know very much about this problem
before this summer.  One of our deacons saw a news story about these
kids right before a deaconate meeting and he came in and told
everybody about what he had seen and then asked, "Can't we do
something?"  So, we've been learning what the need is and what we can
do in response to his question.
        You just don't think about this kind of stuff.  Some foster families
agree to take care of these kids until they graduate without
compensation, but lots of kids just get released in to nothing.  They
have no family to go back too.  They are dependent on whatever social
agencies that they can find to tteach them how to do finances, obtain
learners permits and drivers licenses, all those daily living skills
that we as parents just pass on, a lot of these kids don't have
because there isn't anyone to teach them.
        Well, our church always puts on a thanksgiving ffeed the Sunday
before Thanksgiving.  There's always tons of food so, our first event
was to invite these kids and their social workers to dine with
us.  It went pretty well.  We gave them gifts and so forth and I
think that they had a good time.  As they were leaving, one of the
social workers mentioned that there was one girl who is living in a,
kind of homeless shelter for kids, who had no place  to go for
Thanksgiving.  Greg spoke up right away and said that we could take her.
        We also had been invited to dinner with an old retired pastor in the
area who has been a tremendous support to us, not the former pastor
of this church, for any who remember my past stories.  Anyway, Greg
knew that this guy is big hearted and he knew that one more mouth to
feed would be no problem.  Greg basicly told me,  "We're doing this!"
So, what could I say.  Of course, it was no problem.
        Then, our van died again while Greg was delivering mail on
Monday.  We had just gotten it back from having the transmission
worked on, for the fourth time in three thousand miles.  The van does
have 213,000 miles on it, so I suppose it is getting near its
end.  This time, however, it looks like it may be the coolent
system.  Anyway, we ended up having the car towed to a mechanic who
won't be able to look at it, probbly until this next Monday.  Since
we just bought our first second car, a station wagon, last summer, we
had hoped that the van could make it through the winter, but facing
reality, Greg decided to stop at the same dealer again to shop around
for a replacement van.  This dealer has been really good to us.   His
mother attends our church, and he, the dealer,  has also on
occasion.  Unfortunately, Greg didn't get their until near closing time.
        You need to know that all week, I'd been wondering about the seating
arrangement in the station wagon with our extra passenger to attend
Thanksgiving dinner. I wanted her to be as comfortable with our crew
as ppossible.   Well, Greg found a van, that is pretty cheap and he
started home with it to show me.  It began to snow, and I mean snow
hard.  The dealer is less than ten miles from our house, but it took
more than a half hour for Greg to get home.  When he arrived at
our  house, it was like a blizzard.  We all checked over the van, and
it will do, If we need to buy one.  Greg thinks that it will work
well for a mail vehicle, which would be its main function.  Anyway, I
suggested that he turn around and head right back or he'd never make
it with the weather getting worse and all.  Then, Greg decided to
call and just ask if they needed the van back that night.  The dealer
said, "no.  Go ahead and keep it until Friday and give it a real
test."  So, we did.  We ended up with a nice, spacious van to take
Jen with our family to Thanksgiving dinner.  Oh, the snow, it cleared
up about an hour after Greg called.
        He had already cancelled Thanksgiving Eve services as well, however
because of the weather so we had a very nice evening at home doing
nothing.  What a gift to be thankful for.
        By the way, just in case you're wondering, Chris was not with us
yesterday.  He was probably with Nicki, but we don't know.  We
brought him a plate of thanksgiving dinner, but when we got to his
room, no one was there.  Greg dropped it off to him this morning.  He
said "Thanks," but didn't say anything about how he had actually
spent his day yesterday, so we'll just have to leave it alone and
trust that he was in the Lord's hands.
  As far as what we are doing with the car, we still have no
clue.  Greg is going to see if a loan can be extended to a second
car.  I wish that we didn't have to go into further debt, but even if
we get the old car running again, that will take money as well and
then, there will always be that nagging concern while Greg is
delivering mail that it will break down again.  Plus, this is the car
that Matt drives and he isn't an experienced driver like Greg, so he
could really get stuck somewhere with out much clue of what to
do.   It has been towed five times since june.  Hurray for tripple A
,, but that has been used up for the year as well.  Fortunately, the
transmission repairs have been under warrantee, but new problems will
mean more money, so it looks like, either way, we're going to pay
somebody something.  I just like how God worked things out for
yesterday and I know he'll do it for the rest of the situation as
well..  What an awesome God we serve.
Kathy