We closed revival Friday night at New Mission with an awesome service. We enjoyed the presence of the Lord so very close to us as folks prayed and we sought God. We had quite a bit of fellowship from the local churches that night as well so it was all good.
We were scheduled to start revival Sunday morning over 700 miles away so normally we would leave after service on Friday night. During the week I felt just a little check about leaving after service and I have learned to be sensitive to that. There are times that the Lord speaks to us way. We found out later that this was probably one of those times.
We started early Saturday morning by pulling the trailer a few miles to the interstate with the jeep. I was pretty confident that I couldn't get the trailer out of the narrow approach of the parking lot while hooked to the BoggsMobile so I didn't even try. As you can see in the picture below, the trailer is more that the jeep can handle but it will work for a very short distance in situations like this.
I didn't feel too sorry for Mr. Cheap Jeep because soon he would be inside the trailer and kicked back and enjoying the ride to Mississippi. We had some trouble with straps and trouble with the brake control but soon we were on the road. We stopped while still in Oklahoma and looked everything over and it all looked great. The bus was pulling the trailer very well.
Just below Gainesville, Texas we came on a terrible wreck on the interstate involving several cars and a semi truck and trailer. Kelly Jo was thanking God for the delays we had in getting started since they could have prevented us from being involved in it as well.
We stopped again about 140 miles into the trip and discovered a problem. The hitch on the BoggsMobile was broken and the trailer was almost on the ground in the front. I was only a mile or less from Camping World so I limped into their parking lot. To make a very long story short (Trust me you do not want the long version) we made a trip across town to Redneck Welding (Not the real name, but you get the idea) then back to Camping World to pick up the trailer and after only losing about 4 hours we were back on the road. I was so stressed and busy working that I forgot to take a picture.
The guys at Redneck Welding discovered the weld had been broken a long time. The tow bar for the Jeep has very little tongue weight so I had not noticed it. If the other welds had broken the Jeep would have been lost a long time ago. The trailer has much more weight on the tongue so it exposed the weakness that was already there. The welders were very helpful but didn't know how to unhook the electronics so they only repaired the weld that broke. They wanted to weld quite a bit more to reinforce the hitch but I was afraid it would fry the computer on the motor or the transmission. We decided to start off slow and see if the weld would hold.
We drove 20-40 mph across Dallas which is pretty much as fast as we could have driven in the traffic any way. Then we bumped it up to 50 mph for a few hours and then 60. We checked it each time and the weld seemed to be holding good until about 10:50 that night about 20 minutes west of Monroe, Louisiana. Kelly Jo and I both heard it brake and could see the trailer riding lower in the back up camera. We limped to the next exit and found a wide spot to park. I did take a few pictures by flashlight and also a picture of our location.
We were about 40 miles from Bro. Tracy Boyd and in a little while he came with Bro. Jr. Bordelon from his church to rescue us. We put the trailer on Bro. Jr's truck and they left about 1:00AM taking the trailer with them. Here is a picture of our heroes! Thank you brothers for coming to help us. It was so good to see you arrive.
We will have to backtrack to pick up the trailer in a few days. Kelly Jo climbed in the Jeep and followed me nearly 2 more hours until we could find a truck stop that had a place to park. We finished up the trip today, had an absolutely wonderful service tonight in Richton, Mississippi and we are now headed to bed. I don't feel all that tired but I do feel like somebody ran over me with a truck!
We have been praising God that the trailer did not come completely unhooked. That could have been tragic. It was a long hard two days but at least I'm not pastoring a church!
God bless,
Thanks from us to everyone who helps you out of dire straights. I'm glad it's now a story and not a tragic one. Also, I notice when you make the statement about pastoring a church there aren't many comments, probably lights up the phone though...
ReplyDeleteLove and love to my people on the road,
Steve
Love ya'll!!! <3 miss ya'll be safe out there it was great too see ya
ReplyDeleteChristina Landress Taylor