When we were engaged, Ken had a car, but it died on our way
to North Dakota to visit his family for Christmas. For several months we had to rely on Jean’s
parents for rides to Graceland and the grocery store. But just before our wedding, Ken was able to
buy a car for $35. Think of that! It was a decent car, not fancy, but needed
tires and a few other things. It served
us for a few years and was definitely a testimony to us.
After Daniel was born, we decided to move to Independence
because Sariah had so many medical appointments that it didn’t make sense to
drive back and forth from north Missouri. He was still an infant when we moved,
and Jean was busy caring for two babies.
Ken worked at night and was free to take Sariah to the doctor, and that
worked out well. But then our car broke down and we were without wheels. Friends came to our aid with a car they had
that they didn’t use and they just gave it to us! Once again, God blessed us.
Fast forward several years—to the time when Ken was serving
Grain Valley as pastor, about 1991 to 1996.
We drove an old clunker station wagon that had no air-conditioner and
the bottom was rusted so badly you could see the road under your feet while
driving. But it was big enough to get
all 6 of us to church and back home (we had Ryan by this time). Some friends at church decided that we needed
a better vehicle and one night, just before Christmas, a large, beautiful van
came to our street and parked close to our house. Those friends gave us an envelope containing
the keys, title, and money to license it.
What a wonderful gift! We were so
thrilled! And we all had plenty of room
and a comfortable seat to sit in.
After the van had served its useful life, and Daniel was in
college and Ryan had moved to a group home, we didn’t really need such a large
vehicle anymore. Just at that time, some
friends (we sure have a lot of wonderful friends!) gave us a blue Chevy
Citation that was perfect for the 4 of us.
It had a shimmy that got worse as the speed increased, but when we had
the tires balanced and the front end aligned, the shimmy went away. God was looking after us again! We eventually gave the van to a family in
need of a larger vehicle. It was good to
be able to “pay it forward”.
In 2002, Jean began praying for another vehicle as the blue
car was showing its age and wasn’t too reliable anymore. On Easter Sunday, we noticed a different car
at our neighbor’s house and thought they had got a new one. When we asked them about it, our neighbor
said, “Oh no, it belongs to my sister and her husband and then brought it up
here to try to sell it”. We took it out
for a test drive and liked it very much.
It was a navy blue Ford Crown Victoria.
The price they wanted was just the amount we had saved, so we bought it
on the spot. How great was that—we
didn’t have to go look for a car, it came to us! We drove that car on several vacations and
put many miles on it. It was a
comfortable car and got fairly good gas mileage for a V-8. It was a true blessing.
That brings us to our current car. In 2008, we knew we were going to have to
look for another car. The Crown Vic was
beginning to “nickel and dime” us to death.
Once again, we started praying.
One night at prayer service I mentioned to Sallie that we were looking
for a car to buy and told her to keep her eyes open for one. She immediately said she knew someone who
wanted to sell their second car that they didn’t need. We went and looked at it and it was in good
shape, had a new transmission, and was priced right. It needed a little cleaning and polishing but
looked fine when we were done. We have
really enjoyed our minivan and it has been very reliable.
Who knows what kind of car we will have next time. But we do know that God takes care of us and
is even interested in providing us with cars when we need them. Every time we prayed for a car, one
came. God is good!
