Trip to Kavieng
I apologize for not posting a blog earlier, but there is a good reason. On Monday morning my family and I traveled to Kavieng to get supplies. We usually travel there once a month for a supply run. It is a five hour drive on rough road, but it is incredibly scenic.
The drive to Kavieng was fairly uneventful. However, when we arrived I ended up with two flat tires. This is par for the course. While there, I had to purchase four new tires for my truck. The past several weeks, I have been driving with a different style tire on each wheel, and three different sizes of tires. We were able to get most of the supplies we needed, and thought we would be back quickly to Namatanai.
The country slogan for PNG is “The Land of the Unexpected.” It is a very fitting slogan. The morning we left for Namatanai started off pretty good. It was nice to be driving my truck with four tires that were all identical. My steering wheel was no longer shaking and my truck was no longer wanting to keep veering to the left! About half way to Namatanai, we came upon some really rough parts in the road. All of the sudden, I heard a weird noise from my side of the truck. I quickly stopped to investigate. Daniel, my son, noticed my back tire was rubbing against the fender. As I looked at it, it looked as though my entire rear axle had shifted down and back. When I went to compare on the other side of the truck, it looked just fine. Daniel and I then removed the back tire, and discovered the true problem; the top spring had broken in half! Now if any of the other springs underneath it had broken, not a big deal. But if the top, primary, spring breaks you have a major problem. Thus, I had a major problem. I could not drive my truck. My family is with me, and I am now thinking about how the bamboo bed is going to feel tonight.
By this time, a small crowd had gathered at my truck. I had no idea which village I was currently in. The Lord was watching over us though! Two men informed me that my truck had stopped about 500 meters from a “bush mechanic”! I was able to inch my truck over to him, in less than 3 minutes. To appreciate this, you need to understand that there are not many bush mechanics on the island, and yet my truck broke down right in front of one!
Now, since he was a bush mechanic, he did not have the means to replace my broken spring. He did, however, find some fencing wire lying around, and wired the spring back together. This enabled me to be able to drive my truck temporarily. I was able to head back to Kavieng, in the hopes I could find a replacement spring. The break down also enabled me to make some new contacts in this village, and Daniel was able to give out a lot of gospel tracts.
The Lord blessed and the truck made it back to Kavieng. I headed to the workshop and praise the Lord, they had a second hand spring there that would fit my truck!!! They replaced the spring and I had my truck back Thursday morning. We were back home in Namtanai, by 2:00pm Thursday afternoon.
I am amazed at how the Lord looks after my family and I!
2 comments:
I think we are all amazed at how the Lord works in PNG. You can compile all these stories together in a book and call it The McGovern's Series of Fortunate Events! (a counter part to the popular Series of Unfortunate Events). :)
I know some people think missionaries are very sheltered people and get out of touch with how the world works. If you really think about it, how sheltered are we from the world YOU are living in. My brother, his wife, my nieces and nephews (ha, I can say nephewS now!) have experienced things that no other children or adults in this country have or will experience. They have a testimony of God's work to share with the rest of the world that so entirely different from what we normally hear. I know God will use all of these experiences throughout all of your lives.
Thanks again for the story!!
Many do think my children lived a "sheltered" life.
Many think, "Those poor children having to live in the jungle." Lets examine that: My kids have a real jungle for a playground. Are getting exposed to another culture, which will benefit them for life. Most importantly, they see the Lord work everyday.
Those poor kids. How will they ever learn to adjust to society. :)
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