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
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