MISSION: Uganda Blog Update 10-06-2008

Howdy from the Great White North! We are in Anchorage, AK right now. When last we spoke, we were having our Pastor break into our lockbox to get our passports. He succeeded, and had them overnighted to our hotel in Seattle, WA. They were waiting for us when we got there, and we crossed over into Canada without issue on Thursday. The drive through British Columbia was gorgeous. However, our adventures continued on Friday when we had a blowout about 250 miles from our destination in Whitehorse, YT, Canada. We had just passed through the Canadian Rockies (twisty roads, switchbacks, sheer dropoffs, no guard rails, loose gravel – the works) and driving down a straight, level stretch of road with good shoulders when I heard a loud pop, like a large balloon exploding. I pulled over to the shoulder immediately and when I got out expecting to see a flat tire, I found instead that the tire had come off the rim entirely, but seemed to be undamaged. So, thirty minutes later, I had the spare on and the old tire packed in the back and we were on our way. Now, here's where things get interesting. I have zero cellphone reception, because my phone is CDMA and all of Canada is GSM. I have no way to call Pastor Larry Harrison at Calvary Baptist in Whitehorse to let him know what's going on, no way to call for help, or to let anybody know what happened. We pull into the church parking lot around 1:00 AM. He was expecting us to stay in his missions apartment, but no one is around to let us in when we get there, which is not surprising. I hoped that maybe there might a key hidden to let us in, but no such luck. So, I knocked on the door of the house next door – it wasnt' the Pastor's house. I could see that someone was up, because the lights were on as well as a large screen TV with hockey highlights. Some poor guy came out into the cold in his sock feet, and told me that I wasn't far off – the Pastor's house adjoins the church property, but on the other side (he has a fence with a gate where he can walk through his back yard and be on the church property). He told me the Pastor had a black Ford pickup, but didnt' know the house number, so we drove around the block the appropriate street, in search of black pickups. I kid you not, just as we drove by, a black pickup pulls into the driveway of a house that looks like it could be the one – it was Pastor Harrison returning from services in Haines, AK (they hold service every Friday night, since there's no church there). I knocked on the door, and he got us into the church building to stay the night.

But wait there's more! I figured our tire simply needed to be examined for damage, and if all was well, put back on the rim and aired up, so we went to a tire place to get it taken care of. Not ten minutes later, the Pastor gets a call on his cellphone to come on back, and we find out what really happened – somehow, by some incredible process, the guys who installed my new snow tires managed to get a 16 inch tire onto a 15 inch rim. It not only sealed, but was aired up and held all the way from St. Louis, MO to within 250 miles of Whitehorse, YT. That's nearly 3,000 miles! It was nothing short of a miracle that we weren't killed. I have no idea how the tire was aired up (it should have blown up in their faces), or how it even held to drive out of the parking lot, let alone most of the way to Whitehorse. I do know this – God preserved and protected us in a miraculous way. My mother-in-law, and no doubt many others, were burdened to pray for us on Friday. God held that tire on and protected us until the perfect moment so we could have a blowout safely, get the tire changed, and make our way to Whitehorse to get new tires. I had to get four new tires to replace these, because they had no Michelin X-Ice tires, and you have to have all four tires the same in order to get the traction that snowtires offer. I left the four Michelins in Whitehorse, and we'll be picking those up in three weeks. At present, the company we bought them from are wanting me to bring them home to prove I'm not making this up, but will only reimburse us for the one tire. Pray that they will cover the whole cost of those tires, as well as the new tires I had to buy. I realize that the one tire was mis-labeled, which is why they didn't catch the mistake, but their mistake could have cost our lives. Seriously, only the barest 3mm or so lip of metal was holding our tire on, and you can see the pitting on the tire's lip where it was free to move as we drove. I feel this is a reasonable request considering the colossal negligence shown in making a 16 inch tire hold on a 15 inch rim, and the catastrophic risk this placed upon us. We very well could have been in a rollover accident at highway speeds on the side of a mountain in the middle of the Canadian wilderness with no way to call for help and with night coming on, provided we even survived the wreck. Pray that the rest of our trip goes without incident. We have lots of driving to do in the next few months. We're in Independent Baptist Church of Anchorage with Pastor Stanley Roach. The conference is going great. We didn't make the morning service yesterday because of the tire fiasco, but we did make the evening service. I preached and God greatly blessed. I'm showing our DVD tonight, and preaching. Pray that God continues to work in the services. At the moment, I'm sitting in the living room of a church member's house looking at the Talkeetnans, a beautiful snow-covered mountain range with radiant fall colors in the foreground. God is so good!