Miracle of Miracles

There has to be a reason we weren’t able to stay in Hurghada. Kind of like the time we weren’t able to get our plane tickets with a layover in Lebanon…and then the airport was bombed a few days before we would have been due to arrive there. I don’t know that we’ll ever know the reason for the Hurghada mishap, but I’m sure there is one. For now I’ll share a few miracles that we’ve recognized recently in our life.

First, our car. Our sad, sad little car. It was having some serious problems starting, running, and stopping the last few months we were in Utah. Everything seemed to be problematic but we really didn’t want to have to buy a new car or fix it when we’d be leaving in such a short time. So we just let it suffer. Besides when we went into the auto shop for an estimate the mechanic asked us the make and model of our car and then said, “Was it you that I heard drive up? Just junk it.” It was that bad.

We couldn’t junk it quite yet though, so we kept using it. In the beginning of July we were getting ready for a family vacation and packed up our car to head to Grover with the rest of Andrew’s family. When we had family prayer that morning we prayed that our car would make it there and back safely (and without completely breaking down). We drove to Andrew’s parents’ house to pick up some more gear/people and when we parked in the driveway there was a loud bang and a hiss. Andrew leapt out of the car to see what had happened…a river of fluid was running down the driveway.

So our prayers hadn’t been answered exactly as we’d specified—since we weren’t able to actually take our car to Grover—but at least it had broken down before we left. We were able to pack our stuff into Karen’s car and take that instead.

Our next little miracle happened on the way over to Egypt. We had packed a number of liquids in our checked luggage. I’m always a little nervous about doing this because I’m afraid the bottle or container will break and leak all over everything we own, so I always pack liquids in ziplock bags. We brought along some vanilla and maple flavoring this trip because that kind of thing is hard to come by out here. I, of course, sealed them in ziplock bags and we stuffed them in one of our suitcases, not really paying attention where since we were up packing and repacking until all hours of the morning the night before we left.

When we arrived one of our suitcases smelled really, really good. Maple syrup good.

“Oh, no!” I moaned when we’d figured out that the maple smell really was maple, “It’s probably leaked all over everything!”

Maple flavoring is dark as sin and, although I wasn’t worried about it getting on our white clothes (there’s always bleach, right?), I was worried about it getting on other things. We opened the suitcase and started pulling things out to inspect them.

Indeed, the maple flavoring had leaked, but the damage was minimal. We had packed some of Rachel’s prefolds around it and only one of those suffered any seepage. What a wonderful blessing—I couldn’t care less about what gets spilled on Rachel’s prefolds. I didn’t even bother bleaching it because it’s already stained with stuff far worse than maple flavoring. Besides, Rachel smelled good enough to eat for a whole month before the smell finished washing out!

And that brings us to today when Andrew’s computer mysteriously connected to the internet. We’ve only been able to get onto wireless internet once before and it was only if you sat in one corner of the house with the computer tilted a certain way and it only lasted for like 5 minutes. Other than that we’ve been in an internet black hole.

Andrew opened his computer when we got home from Maadi House, though, and email alerts stared popping up on his screen. Rachel came over and started banging on the keyboard and ended up opening a chat window with Richard. He didn’t answer her \\\\|||||lkjpppjupol;;;lpoe,jLKADFGP message, but we noticed that Reid was also online, so we let Rachel type a new w3(7^R*&^ksfohpaj [[[[[[[[[[[ls;;; message to him. He, of course, responded.

Who can resist a grandchild?

He was able to fill us in on the condition of Grandpa Frank, who was due for open heart surgery #2 in just an hour. He hasn’t been doing well since his first open heart surgery a few weeks ago and they recently found a growth the size of his heart sitting behind his heart so they have to crack his ribs open (again) and remove it.

Reid said that he had to get off to the hospital and said goodbye to us. We were just typing our farewell response when the internet kicked out again. So, unfortunately, we won’t know how Grandpa Frank’s surgery went for a while, but it was nice to be able to know about the situation so that we could pray more specifically for him as a family. I can only imagine how miserable he’s feeling. (My dad was in the hospital for like 5 days after his open heart surgery and on Sunday last week Grandpa Frank had already been in for like 16 or 18 days. Yuck.)

With all those miracles happening in our life, I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a big reason we weren’t supposed to go snorkeling in Hurghada this weekend. Maybe we would have been eaten by sharks or gotten lice from the sheets or been kidnapped by terrorists or worse. We may never know the exact reason our vacation went awry, but I do know that the Lord is control of every detail of our life and that He works miracles every day.