Opposition seemed to greet us rather than fortune. Our home church had a custom of having a special time of prayer and taking up a special offering whenever someone went away to Bible college. We were informed a few days before our departure that they were not going to do that for us. They hoped we understood that another person was also leaving for Bible college almost two months later and they wanted to wait and pray for both of us and hold one offering for the both of us at that time. Needless to say I was kind of hurt. I had been serving this church, in many capacities, since I was twelve years old and they weren't even going to pray over me before I left. It was devastating. Later, after they had the big send off for the other person they sent me a check in the mail for $25. This was a very large church and they had never taken that small of an offering for a stranger. Not quite the send off I had hoped to receive. I didn't need heroic accolades, but to be slighted like that cut to the core.
I did have a much better send off than I expected from my father-in-law's church that same weekend. Since the church we grew up in was passing us over for the customary send off I accepted their invitation to preach for them one last time before heading off to college. This congregation prayed over us, sending us out, and took up an offering for us. I think the church board even added to the offering because after the service I was handed an envelope with over three hundred dollars in it.
We left California that day with a very different sense of who our home church was. Over the years when we came home to visit it was this church body we came to visit, it was there I went to preach and give a report of how things were going.
Thankfully, we left California with glad hearts, though we were soon to feel like we were plagued with as many troubles as the settlers who first came West in covered wagons.
Our poor little Volkswagen Bus was loaded down way over its weight limit. It had no problem handling highway speeds in flat-out territory, but it became rather problematic whenever our flight plan required us to climb the slightest grade. I think our top speed climbing any hill was about fifteen miles per hour and considering we had to cross the Sierras, the Rockies and climb our way into the Ozarks and several smaller hills and ranges in between, this made our trip considerably longer and more costly than we had expected.
We had a family reunion to stop at on our way on our way there and almost didn't make it. Older Volkswagens have lug bolts instead of lug nuts and our over burdened bus decided to throw several lug bolts an hour outside of the town we were meeting in for the reunion. Quite a scary thing to pull over and realize you are just a few threads away from losing a wheel and rolling at highway speeds with your wife and the last of your possessions trusted to your driving ability.
Unexpected delays in travel, unexpected vehicle repairs, and greater fuel and travel expenses than we expected nearly wiped out our resources before we ever arrived in Springfield. Had it not been for our stopping over in Oklahoma with family for a week and preaching some and the congregations taking up offerings for us, we wouldn't have made it without having to call back home and ask for help, but God worked it out and we made it to Springfield on exactly what we had. We had to sell plasma that first week just to have some cash for gas and basic necessities, but we knew we were where God wanted us and we were excited about where God wanted to lead us and Satan was so interested in discouraging us from getting to,
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Location:Carver Dr,Roswell,United States
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