The First Week
Part II

(You will need to read the previous post for this to make sense.)


So, here I was driving 65mph down the road in a 29ft motor home and my son had just cut his thumb almost completely off. I quickly called the pastor of the church in Winnipeg, where I had a meeting scheduled. I told him, I was about an hour from Winnipeg and needed to find a hospital. The closest one was in Winnipeg itself. I followed his directions to the hospital and found it without much problem. However, pulling into this hospital with my motor home was not easy. I manage to pull up to the front of the emergency room door and let my son and wife out.

I now have the problem of trying to park my 29ft motor home. The streets of Winnipeg are not conducive to motor homes. I saw in the hospital parking lot that there are some empty slots were I could parallel park. I pulled into the parking lot and then I had to take a ticket from a machine, which would allow the cross arm to rise. As I drove through, I heard a crunching noise and I cringed. I thought the arm came down on my motor home. I went and parked still not thinking that anything major was wrong. I stepped out of the motor home to go look at the damage. When I saw what happened I felt miserable. The back seam was torn open. I could crawl into my motor home through the hole. There was no way I could drive on a highway like this, let alone sleep in it.

I had just driven through a blizzard, my son cut his thumb almost completely off, and now my motor home had the back end ripped open, which rendered it useless. The first week of deputation was just GREAT!

My oldest daughter just looked at me and could tell by my expression that I was troubled. I had several very important meeting coming up, ten in a two week time period, and it looked as though I was going to have to cancel all of them. While standing looking at the damage, I decided to call my pastor. When I told him what had just happened, he laughed. I was not laughing and failed to see the humor in it. He then said, “Sounds like the Lord is getting you ready for Papua New Guinea!” I agreed and then wondered, if that is true, what would Papua New Guinea be like!

I then walked over to see what damage happened to the arm I had hit. At this time, I was really mad at the hospital, thinking they would be paying for this damage to my motor home. However, as I walked up to the arm, there is no damage to it at all, but the machine that I had taken the ticket from was smashed. The accident was entirely my fault, not the hospitals! My moter home had clipped the ticket machine, when I turned, causing the damage.

I then walked into the hospital to check on my son and tell my wife what had happened. My wife was very encouraging, as she always is in situations like this. I then told a hospital official about the accident in the parking lot. He made some calls and we walked outside to look at the damage to the ticket machine. I told him about my week, and he then looked at the damage my motor home took and he was amazed. He told me not worry about the ticket machine, that the hospital would replace it. I was relieved. The Lord was working.

I went back in to the hospital to check on Daniel. The doctor had looked at his hand and said he needed surgery. He said, the knife cut through the joint capsule and severed his tendon. He then said, they did not have a surgeon who could perform this surgery. He said he would have the hospital call to other hospitals, in the area, to find one that could help us.

Meanwhile, it was now about 9:00pm and the pastor, from the church I was supposed to be at, showed up to check on us. He told me he saw my motor home in the parking lot and noticed the damage. He then told me there is a man in their church that owns a RV body repair shop! I never knew such a place even existed! The Lord was working. Keep in mind too, this church only has about 30 people. It is a mission work itself. Yet, one of their members just happened to own a RV body repair shop! The doctor then comes out and told me they found a hospital that could help us.

We headed over there, arriving about 10:00pm at the hospital. The surgeon just happened to still be there! He should have been home by this time. We talked for a short time and he said, he will do the surgery the next day. He then said, “Wait, I will try and do the surgery now.” He said if could easily find the tendon, the surgery would only take about 20 minutes or so. He said if he can not easily find the tendon, then he would finish the surgery in the morning. (He explained that when a tendon is severed, it springs back like a rubber band, many times making the tendon difficult to find.) We prayed the Lord would give him wisdom and help him to find the tendon quickly. He did, and the surgery was over in 20 minutes. They then put a cast on him and we were out the door. It was around midnight now. The Lord was still working!

That night we slept at the pastor’s house. Early in the morning, we took my motor home to the workshop of the RV repair shop. The men immediately went to work on it. They wasted no time. Within one hour, they had rejoined the seam with sheet metal, and it was ready to go!!!!! The owner did not charge me one penny for the work or materials used!

Not even 12 hours earlier, I was wondering what in the world was going on. Why was God allowing this to happen? I was thinking I would be in Winnipeg for several weeks, awaiting insurance adjusters, trying to find a place to repair my motor home, etc. Now 12 hours later, I was back on the road heading to my next meeting. I never had to cancel one meeting! The Lord worked in a great way, as he did throughout deputation! My pastor was right: The Lord was simply getting me ready for Papua New Guinea.