Not too long ago, I took a friend of mine, Pat, to a cat show in Corpus Christi, Texas. I was looking forward to the trip so I could go stand in the gulf beach ocean and sit by the water. We went down on Friday Night and were suppose to return home on Sunday night. The cat show started at 8 a.m. Saturday morning, the next day. We got everything set up and had a lovely day and then dinner with friends. On Sunday morning, I woke up with a migraine headache and my eyes had literally swollen up. I did not think I could make it to the cat sow and arranged for someone to drive her since she is in a wheelcair. We were suppose to leave, but I could not make the drive at night with my head hurting that bad. We would have been home around 5 a.m if we had left Sunday night.
The next morning I got everything packed up and we got the wheelchair loaded and off we set for home. We got about half an hour into a town called Mathis when the handicap van I was driving stalled right in the middle of a busy intersection for 18 wheelers. There were two gentlemen that went to the convenience store and bought us a strap to tow us. While they were tying up the van to pull us, a lady and her daughter stopped to see if we needed help. She topped because she saw the handicap signs on the van where the lift was. She said she would call someone to come help us get the van running again.
About an hour later, a Hispanic gentleman drove up. He looked at the van and seemed to be working very mythodically. He jumped in the van and it started right up. After a few minutes it was dying on him. He asked if we would mind going to his house were he had some tools to help us. So off we went. After replacing the fuel filter and working on that system, the van started and we thought we were home free. Juan said he would drive the car around and make sure everything was okay. My friend Pat was in the car with him and I waited on the sidewalk for them to come home. An elderly gentleman walked up to me and asked me if Juan was working on my car. I told him yes, he said that is son was a good mechanic and he would take good care of us. While I was trying to listen to his father, I heard the vans exhaust system surge, but I had no idea where they were. We were looking at about 3:30 p.m. at this point. Because of the wheelchair my friend has, we cannot just go to any bathroom. She has to be able to turn around in the stall to manuver herself and the chair to a proper position. Juan had driven the car up to his sister in laws so he could make sure the care would not die. He came to get me in his sisters car saying he was going to have to tow us back to his house. He did not have but a 15ft peice of rope to pull us. His last words to me as we were moving forward was, "Don't hit my new truck!" I was a nervous wreck we were right on his bumper all of the way home. By this time it is almost 4:45p.m.
Clouds were starting to form overhead and there was a hotel about 2 - 3 miles away. That was the closest. Problem was none of those hotels were handicap accessible. They all had a 4 inch step up to get in the room. The clerks, who barely spoke English said she could leave the chair on the walk way and she could step up into the room. I had told her that Pat was not ambulaory what so ever, hence the wheelchair. I was becoming frustrated because I had to be at work at 8 a.m. the next morning and it did not look like we were going to get home that evening. Juan and his parents offered to let us stay with them, but we had two cats and they had dogs, and we still could not get Pat's chair in the door.
Juan went back to working on the car. He thought that we might have a short in the wiring. He started going through each wire and found where they had melted together in the heat and were causing a short in the ignition charger. Once we got the new charger and the wired competed we waited. I continued to pray and try and think of something that would get us home safely. At about 6 p.m. it was getting dark. Juan's mother came out and said that she had made us all dinner and we could start again in the morning. She had also called the one and only nursing facility in the town to put us up for the night. Her parents were both residents in that facility.
We had a beautiful dinner and Juan came out and said he thought he had the van fixed. We all went outside, said a prayer and started the van. It started first time and I new God had been kind to us. We went to pay Juan and he said that he could not take our money, we finally insisted that he take at least 100.00. We called our family and friends and told them were coming in tonight All of them said, please don't stay another night and come in tomorrow when it was light outside. I told Pat I would like to drive until I became tired, I would at least like to make it into Houston. The van was running great so we kept going. We pulled into Hillsboro County line an I-35 when the van started shaking uncontrollably. I did not think I could keep it under control. We had in fact had a major blow out on the highway of 18 wheelers. I remembered that on the back of your license is a number to call. When I told the officers were I was He said, "Do not get out of the car. Lock the doors and we will be there in a minute." About an hour later the Hillsboro Police pull up. The officer was going to change the tire, but then noticed that because the van was handicapped it had a dropped floor with a skirt around the bottom. There was nothing to do but call a tow truck.
The police called us a truck, problem was, they will not tow the car with a person inside. We could not get the ramp down because we had pulled off to the rails on the side of the road. the police officer said and we cannot have tow truck lift the car with someone inside, if I had the tow truck do that I would get a hefty ticket. I explained the money situation and Pat's situation. Finally, the police officer told me to do what I had to do, he went back to sit in hi car. The ow truck driver lifted the van and changed the tire right then The temperature had fallen to seventeen degrees and raining. I was totally soaked and shivering. The tow truck driver wanted us to drive to the convenient store so that we could take care of the financials in the light. When I got back in the car it would not start. He came over, jumped us and said he could not charge us a dime because this was truly a situation were he just needed to be a christian. Again, God please let us just get home safely tonight and the van started. We finally arrived and unpacked the car about 5a.m.
This whole story was told because at the beginning of this adventure our friend Cheryl prayed for us and got a group of people praying for us as well as all of my family. The pray prayed for us to
''...be safe and to get home as quickly as possible. Also please let Virginia and Pats true light shine forth today so that every Christan they run into will see the light of Christ. Please pray for Virginia to maintain her calm and gentile affect and not become angry or start too worry.
That day several things happen, not only did we touch the lives of others but they showed us many blessings. The person they sent was an ex husband of the lady driving the car. I found out that Juan had recently lost his job and was going through a divorce. He seemed to need to show his parents the kind of good work he could do and his parents needed to see that he does a wonderful job and is a good person. Maybe he needed to feel confident about something. maybe his parents needed to tell their son they ere proud of him. Maybe the police officer was sent to avoid a wreck or something else in his life. Maybe the tow truck driver need something to feel good about. All I know is that there were a lot of miracles that fell into place that day. I was very lucky to have received the blessings of all of those good people.
Most of all it showed me that there are truly good people in the world and they too carry the light of Christ with them everyday. Everything happens for a reason.
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