Friday, July 9, 2010

Here is a link to the "Brazil Team Blog".

This blog is written by various team members, including Tommy. I am standing in awe that the prayers spoken over these young people at the sendoff prayer meeting are coming to pass in such amazing ways.
Tommy and his Team members are having a remarkable time there. (For those of you who don't know Tommy, he is the one in the plaid shirt.)

Please continue to lift them up in prayer as they complete their final week in South America.
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In our completely mundane life here in Arkansas, things have gone on pretty much as usual. One 'different thing' today- a different thing I could live without!...
I got to work this morning to face a VERY large load of freight. (22 totes plus a pallet of larger items and cases of items).
Before I even clocked in, the phone began to ring. (If the store isn't open for business, the phone can ring off the hook and will NOT get answered.) I had the thought, "Maybe that was Tom. I should call Tom". I stifled that thought- I had a lot of work to do and Tom would NOT be calling me at work, the moment I walked in the door! (I had forgotten to take my cell phone!)

So I got started sorting freight. About 15 minutes later, someone begins BANGING on the back door. I am in a building by myself at 5:45 in the morning. It is dark outside, and everywhere in the building except the area where I am working. I got very still and wondered if it was a customer with some emergency that was seeing the lights on in the back room and wanting me to open up. The phone began to ring again.
Should I call the police? I wonder. If I stay still and ignore their pounding, maybe they will go away. I wonder how strong the 'garage' type door is?
The phone keeps ringing.
I took a route through the back aisles of freight to see if I could look out the front glass and see who was banging on the back door. I had no more than peeked around the corner of the aisle towards the glass fronted store, than I see a man standing there with a cell phone in hand, looking right in at me!
I recognized Tom in a nano-second, but not before being so startled I almost faint.

I went to the back door to see what he needed. He called me outside to look at my car. It had a flat tire.
He had heard it "whine" as I backed from the driveway, and tried to call me- discovering my cell phone was left home. Then he tried calling O'Reilly's. As I said, if the store isn't open for business, the phone does NOT get answered. So he came rushing up there to tell me I had a flat! (So I wouldn't drive any more on it.)

Why NO, I didn't notice it was driving funny, nor did I hear the tell-tale whumpity whumpity whumpity one associates with flat tires.
Yes, I am that ignorant.
I HAD noticed, as I left the house, that I was running a good five minutes early, and it was raining. So I was driving extra slowly to work.

Mr C advised me to get a can of fix a flat put in the tire before I came home, or else put the donut on until we could get the tire fixed. He was running late for work, and didn't have time to deal with it this morning.

Boss walked in just as it was getting daylight, and tells me right away, my car has a flat.
Two co-workers remind me I have a flat, as they arrive.
Boss discusses the flat with one of the co-workers, and says they are not leaving me to deal with it myself. Co worker Chad goes out and puts the donut on the car for me. (Yay Chad, Thank you SO much!)
He and I examined the tire, but couldn't find a puncture, or nail in it. Boss was going to send the tire across the road with our delivery driver, to a place that repairs flats... but then the store got busy. (It got busy enough I was answering phones and waiting on customers instead of just putting away freight! That is pretty busy!)

So I finally got all my shipping and receiving done. I took the tire across the street myself, where the mechanic found a hole in the tread, but on the 'side', rather than the part that meets the road. It wasn't quite in the sidewall, which is pretty much unrepairable, but close. He plugged it for me, for less than the cost of a can of fix a flat. I was out in less than 10 minutes.

One more day to go until my weekend. Please remember to pray for the Brazil Mission team!

1 comment:

Truth said...

Thanks for sharing the Brazil blog. What an exciting time for Tommy. God is good!