Tent Revival

Monday afternoon we travelled to Butler, PA to attend a tent revival. One of our former pastors, Brother Jack Schaap was preaching and the Committed Quartet was singing. We had an uneventful trip there, as you can see in these photos.

We got there a bit early and David went to save us some seats. We left to grab a quick bite to eat. On our way back to the tent our van started acting up. We were getting quite worried, and hoped she was gonna be okay.

After the service we were able to get a family photo with Brother Schaap. He shook our hands, hugged David, and signed the kids' Bibles. It was nice to see him and talk to him again. He said we have a beautiful family, and I heartily agree with him! :)

Now the bad news! We were going to leave and the van decided she didn't want to go anywhere. It seemed to us like a transmission problem. The people at this church were so gracious to us. One couple offered for us to stay in their home. Another family gave us some cash. The pastor let us push our van out of the way and then put our family up at a local hotel. The church paid for the hotel for us. It looked like we weren't going to be going anywhere that night. We were stuck!

One of the good things about this trip is that we got to see my brother-in-law and his wife Amber. They drove from Cleveland to hear the preaching and to see us as well. Uncle John bent over to pick something up off the floor of our hotel, and Cole jumped right on his back!

I love this one of Brooke. She was tired, but that little grin was so cute!

Here are the brothers with our clan. I looked at that picture and thought to myself, "That's a lot of kids!" Then I looked at the photo again and realized that all of those kids were mine! I am blessed.

Brooke got to be with Aunt Amber also. We were able to talk to them, eat with them and spend some time together before they headed back home for the night.

The next morning my husband was on the phone making calls. Our insurance company towed the van for us to a mechanic shop. The dreaded diagnosis came: transmission! David called our pastor and he and his wife brought the church van to come and pick us up. Praise the Lord that was another uneventful ride home!

Friday or Saturday David will head back to Butler to tow our van home. He'll get to test out his truck to see how much power it really has! Even though we thought we would go on a quick trip, the Lord had other ideas. I'm still not sure why God allowed our van to break down, but as I look back, I can see His protection on our family while we were away from home. We could've broken down in the mountains coming home. We wouldn't have had any friends or family to help us there. We would've been really stranded then. As it worked out, we slept in our church clothes in a hotel that we didn't have to pay for. That's not SO terrible. The kids thought it was a great adventure, and God knew just how to take care of us.

God is good, all the time!