Friends

For those of you who don't know, we had a really terribly traumatic weekend beginning last Friday. Andy was returning from San Francisco and the kids and I were so excited. Delta called to say Andy's plane in Atlanta was going to be a bit late. He already had a layover there- so that put him not getting home until mid-night! Well in my head I thought, "So I could pick him up, have dinner, drive home, and put him in bed before he even leaves the Atlanta Airpot! I'll just go surprise him!"

Ok, so....Andy doesn't like surprises as much as I do. That is truly something I need to remember at times like these. I spontaneously loaded the kids in the Explorer and took off on an adventure. Well, as I drove into Atlanta I realized that I didn't know how to get to the airport, so I pulled off of the interstate to ask directions. I had to drive a little ways to find a populated business, and there discovered that I had a flat tire! I panicked but remembered that I have a friend from Operation Christmas Child whom I thought lived close by so I called her and she came to get me and the kids. We went and picked up Andy from the airport so that he could come back and change my tire....so much for the getting him home to rest!

So then we're on the road home. We got off 85N onto 20W and decided to get off at Douglasville (close to Six Flags) for gas and Burger King. We filled up, got back on the road, made it 6 miles, and the next thing I knew there was a loud POP and some kind of thumping! Smoke started coming out from under the hood. Luckily we were right at an exit so I was able to get it off of the interstate. At this point it was 11 o'clock and 29 degrees outside!!!!

We have roadside assisstance through AT&T so we called them and they sent a wrecker that took an hour and a half. Then we called our dearest friends who set up a hotel room using their reward points for us and came to pick us up the next morning. (Needless to say, Andy would have had a better night's sleep in his own bed even if he got home late!!!!!) We got in bed at 1am and when we left the next morning, we waved good-bye to our truck. It's still in Atlanta, somewhere.

We have to get a new engine. That Explorer didn't even have 88K miles on it!!!!!!!

So our finances have been frozen because it will cost about $2000.00 to fix the truck. We still have Christmas presents to buy, a trip to Momma's to make, all kinds of thoughts were going through our heads. We began trying to scrape together a plan....meanwhile our super close friends that we have a really tight "supper club" with began praying for us. They have called and prayed and asked and cared since the minute they found out about all of this. And today, well today I got a card in the mail with a $200 Wal-Mart gift card from "The Sup Dawgs"! We've also had friends offer to lend us the money to get the truck fixed!

Andy and I have a hard time with this as we are the ones who really like to help others. It's hard to express your needs to people when you know that they have things going on in their own lives that you want to help with SOOOOO badly! I think King David penned it perfectly in Psalm 133.1 when he said "Behold how good and how pleasant it is, when brothers dwell in unity!" Where would we be without our friends.....our brothers.....our sisters?