October 7, 2008

Up the Road Without a Motor (Updated)

Earlier this year our sending church very generously sent a gift which allowed our family to be able to attend this year' "Conferênia Fiel" (think a Brazilian version of the Shepherd's Conference). Since then we have been dilligently saving in order to be able to afford the trip there and back (the conference is in São Paulo, roughly 1,000 miles from home).

Two weeks ago I took the car to the garage to fix a transmission problem, and give it an oil change and check for any other problems. On Saturday, one week and two days (and about $1,000) later the car left the shop with a clean bill of health. We left that same day for São Paulo.

Fast forward to today (Tuesday). We are stuck in a city called Curvelo (pop. 70,000) in the middle of Minas Gerais. What seemed at first like a simple problem of the engine heating up has turned into a major operation requiring new parts and a $1500.00 price tag.

The conference started yesterday, and we will not get out of here until tomorrow morning at the earliest.

Sigh.

This was not at all part of our plans. When we started out on Saturday we prayed (we are, after all, good Regular Baptists). In our prayer we submitted ourselves to God's sovereignty and timing.

It is like God is asking "Did you really mean that?".

Update: Everything indicates that we will not be making it to any of the conference. Bummer.

Posted by Andrew on October 7, 2008 3:06 PM.