A Shower of Grace

I have never ceased to be amazed at God's provision & grace, but everything is happening all at once hand over fist, Cid himself says he feels as if his head is going to explode & has referred to Providence twice. I had to go out between the sheets to shed a happy tear.

We have the camper, it is BEAUTIFUL & everything in it works great. The last owner is a fireman & head of the union, a very meticulous sort. Much like Cid, but more so. He hand details the engine heads of his 3 fire trucks every week. I don't know if that's regs or not. Mr. D- said he wouldn't have sold it to us had we planned to do cross country trips all of the time, (it is a 92') & he had offers coming in left & right. He had never used Craigslist, & turned a lady away who was coming to pay for it right when Cid was standing there since her husband had called & said maybe not the week before. So Mr. D- wouldn't sell unless I was there, otherwise he didn't feel comfortable. Anyway, he had it pulled out, hooked up, awning spread, everything. A very nice man. Then since we didn't have a truck, he hauled it to our house, in the side yard (no easy feat, only 12' wide) teaching Cid & Victor how to hitch & unhitch. He showed us how to level it, hooked up the water, lit the burners & stove for me, showed us how the AC & fans worked, when to use them, all of the alarms, the tv antenna we don't plan on getting a tv for, the outside shower... I'm tired. It's so much. It really reminds me of living on the LSV-6 (The James A. Loux, Logistic Support Vessel) in Kuwait, leveling jacks instead of ballast, the water system is the same, everything must be in Tupperware, shorepower, etc. My in-laws are visiting over the weekend & they will be the first to use it; I need to get some amenities out there.



The Truck



The truck is a whole other story. Cid sold the Jeep last week, & we were considering selling the mini-van. Except (don't laugh) I can't drive a stick. Cid has the 94' Tacoma I can't drive, & it can not haul a 30' trailer. Before we were looking at campers Cid saw truck/camper combo in Craigslist (again) & called it in. I've not yet ridden in it, but he took us over to meet the people & test drive the truck. They are a nice retired military couple in a ton of debt. Their camper was big, but no bunks or a tub. They said they would sell the truck alone to us, it's an 05' Chevy 3500 diesel crew cab, which is way more than we need to haul a trailer, but Cid is looking at keeping a bunch of tools in there too, an air compressor, generator; heavy stuff. The truck is ridiculously huge. Mr. S- says he paid $48,000 for it & $10,000 of that is easily in added on bells & whistles. We are a cash based family though & while we could pull $6,000, $24,000 is too much. But praise God! Mr. S- is a numismatist & goes to coin shows as a consignor. We had put all of Cid's $16,000 reenlistment bonus in gold & silver when he got back from Kuwait when it was selling at $640 an oz. Cid consigned our boullion &... only 1 coin sold, for $1100. At this rate we would never get the truck before the camper & Cid had set his heart on the truck. It has less than 50,000 miles. But as it turns out, my cashed in IRA (losing alot of money this last year or two) was enough to pay off what Mr. S- owed on the truck & softened him up. He took the gold for the rest of the payment & the truck is ours! W/ enough left over to buy the extra tools.

This is all happening SO fast, I can't belive how God is working it all out so smoothly & letting us walk in obedience toward being separate from the world & relying on him. Also, just for fun, what I thought was a cucumber turned out to be a watermelon plant!

Happy in Va.- Vanessa