He gives and takes away... & sometimes gives back

Before the holidays, we had a very interesting experience at church one Sunday. It was the end of the message and George was translating for our Pastor Mike. Mike was giving the invitation for those who would want to ask Jesus into their lives. All of a sudden there was yelling from outside, a loud explosion, and then a car alarm. As George translated Mike's words, "I hope that was not your car", George knew it was our car.

The service ended and we went out to see our mini-van smashed like an accordian. Apparently a person had gotten out of his car up the hill & didn't put on the brakes or curb his tires. The car barreled down 1 1/2 blocks before it finally met our bumper.

Our church family ralied around us to sort out the mess, but knowing the man barely had a peso to his name, we knew there wasn't much we could do. In our hearts, we were just grateful no one got hurt. We realized that 5 minutes later, someone probably would've been seriously injured or even killed (once church had let out). And if the car hadn't crashed into ours, it would've gone another block into the open air market, where families and vendors were walking around.

So, we basically wrote off the car as a loss (it really was totalled), and realized it was a temporary gift from God that we got to enjoy for a while.

But recently, a local mechanic offered to repair it at a very reasonable price. We expect to get the car back in a few days, God willing. We don't expect it to be quite the same, but we hope it'll be safe and reliable. And when we counted the costs, we realized that what we're paying for the repair is probably less than if we had used comprehensive insurance with a deductible.

What we were reminded of through this whole situation is that the things God gives us are just loans. And how we respond in times like this can either bring glory to God or damage our testimony. It doesn't matter how tight we try to hold onto material things... eventually they'll all break down or get destroyed. This reminded us of the importance of storing up treasures in heaven, not in our material things.

Above is a photo of the car, AFTER it had been worked on quite a bit... (you should've seen it when it was first hit)...