Brad,
         Thanks for trying, but, evidently, by the time Greg gotit to 
the mechanic yesterday, the transmission was the only good thing on 
it.  GRIN!  Greg ended up going back to our friendly used  car  lot 
to try out new vans, well, new to us anyway.  When the mechanic had 
turned on our car, it roared so bad that he said that it just wasn't 
worth it.  Greg took it down the road to a guy who works on junk cars 
and, I guess that we will get about $200 for it; just enough to pay 
the car excise  tax on whatever we get next.  Even the junk dealer 
said that it was in pretty rough shape.
         We've received a lot of blessings out of this latest 
adventure though.  First of all, the timing of this couldn't have 
been better.  Greg already has his sermon finished because he didn't 
use it last Sunday due to low attendance at church on account of the 
weather.  This means that Greg had a little extra time this week, 
whatever that means in the life of a pastor.  Secondly, Greg will be 
working almost full time at the post office for about four months, 
beginning some time soon because the regular that he subs for is 
having shoulder surgery and will be out of commission for at least 
that long.  It would have been a lot worse if the van had died then 
because Greg wouldn't have  had any time to sspare to shop for 
something else.  The third blessing came this morning.  Greg did find 
something yesterday that he can use, a pretty inexpensive van that 
will do the job, but the credit union that we have our loan on our 
other car with,  wouldn't consider extending the loan to this other 
van because it was too old.  Anyway, out of the blue, and the 
salesman has never seen this happen before, they called back and 
changed there minds.  All Greg and I did through all of this is just 
continue to pray.  We figured that if the Lord didn't want us to have 
that vehicle that he knew things that we didn't.  Anyway, when the 
credit union called back, they also offered a lower interest rate 
than anybody else and the salesman couldn't explain that one 
either.  It's not over yet, but Greg has been using the opportunity 
to really talk a lot about the Lord's blessings and provision to the 
salesman and the guy is just, sort of in awe.  Oh yah, the dealership 
is replacing the ulternater for free as well on this other van before 
Greg picks it up.
         I don't know what will happen next.  I know that we aren't 
getting a high quality vehicle.  It's a 99 WindStar, I believe, but 
you don't necessarily want a brand new car for doing rural mail work 
anyway.  It won't stay looking new for long, especially on those 
nasty washboard dirt roads.  I guess that we're just at peace about 
the whole thing.
         Ned, you had mentioned putting in $1,000 for repares.  Well, 
we had already sunk $2,000 for a new transmission last June that 
never did work quite right until the engine blew.  Also, last year, 
it cost us over $700 just to get the van to pass inspection and you 
have to get the car inspected every year so we were facing that 
unknown coming up this spring  as well.  As far as maintinence we've 
always been really good about changing the oil every 3,000 and 
keeping up with brakes and fluids and tires just because a well 
maintained vehicle will last longer anyway.  This one made it to 
214,000 miles.  I suppose that we could have replaced the engine and 
kept it going, but we just didn't feel like sinking another $3,000 
into it and then wonder when something else would blow.  I suppose 
that if it had been a horse we would have had to shoot it a long time ago.
         Anyway, thanks for praying.  Just pray that we remain very 
clear about our decision and that if the Lord has something else in 
mind that we will know it before it is too late.  It's all in His hands.
Kathy


At 06:56 PM 1/19/2006, you wrote:
>Is the rest of the van in good shape? Worth putting in a used engine?
>Sometimes one can just exhaust the amount of money one wants to put in a
>vehicle, but having a good transmission and if the rest is OK, perhaps it
>is worth it. Nonetheless I'll pray for the situation.
>
>Brad
>
>
>
>At 02:20 PM 1/19/2006 -0500, you wrote:
> >The van is toast!"  Help Lord!  Amen!
> >Kathy
>
>Brad
>
>    Work is for people who don't know how to write songs