Thank the Lord for Beer Cans on the Side of the Road!

Friday, was All Saint's Day here, so we took advantage of the three day weekend to join our friend Adreana and 40-some kiddos in Postrervalle, a town about six hours from Santa Cruz with two Nacer Ministries children's homes.

We toured their gardens, chicken coop, pig pen, duck ponds, and house.  They climbed on us, tugged on us, hugged on us, and practiced their English on us.  It was a blast!  Armed with nothing but a few dozen chocolate chip cookies and nearly as many board games we made friends with the sweet sweet kids, while Adreana worked on the home's sponsorship program.

We tried to imagine living in such a tiny remote town when we visited the shower-less, kitchen-less little house a missionary couple is about to move into to work with the homes. The cooler weather, near absence of sand and mosquitoes, and gorgeous mountains give Santa Cruz a run for its money even with its proximity to most everything and relative luxuries like grocery stores.

Of course, saying goodbye to all those adorably dirty faces was hard after their gracious hospitality and warm welcome. 

But the real reason leaving them was so hard, was that the LandRover's steering went out completely on the side of a cliff about 10 kilometers outside of town. On a Sunday morning, ~6 hours away from the nearest tow truck, with a baby in the car and no shade in sight, we lathered up on sunscreen and started to pray.  Between prayers, we made some phone calls, both requesting more prayer and investigating the local mechanic/tow truck situation.  In a town where everyone drives motorcycles, if they drive at all, it was a miracle that we were able to get a mechanic to come out to us and give us a hand. That was the second miracle of the day, the first being that we hadn't driven off the mountain when Jon lost control of the wheel.  And the third, when the mechanic used a steak knife and a beer can we found littered on the side of the road to temporarily repair the steering column linkage-thingy.  

Never have I felt any fondness for roadside litter until that moment, but the whole drive home we sited every beer can and thanked the helpful citizens throwing them out their windows.  Miracle number four was when we arrived home from those curvy mountainous roads safely!  Thank you for your prayers, sometimes you might not know how to pray specifically, but God loves to hear from you, and it might just direct His hand to hold that beer can patch in place till we can get the real linkage-thingy installed.