Lessons on the Mission Field: Flexibility! (Part II)

To finish the moving story, we got everything packed that night. The next morning we put the beds and the couches in the pod. Only one more problem. We couldn't get the door shut! We tried ten more arrangements over the next thirty minutes and still couldn't get it all to fit. The only thing keeping it open was one leg on one couch that we could not get to straighten out into the unit. This time, I kept my cool a little bit better (its easy to remember the next day) and made the suggestion we detach the whole frame of the couch and it might push in further. It took about five more minutes and two allen wrenches, but the plan worked and it all fit! Now you can just pray with us come January that it will open after thing have probably shifted some! Another note of God’s providence is that we sold probably seven or eight pieces of small furniture in the weeks leading up to our move. If we had sold one less, it definitely would not have fit into the storage pod!

We were finally ready to go. We loaded the kids in the car. While I was loading the bunny (yes, we have a bunny named Mr. Hops) into my car I hear a very loud “SHOOOOOT!!!” I run over to the trailer to see my Dad sitting on the ground up against the trailer nursing his right arm. He was tying down some things on the truck. When pulling the rope taught with his full weight around the corner of our boxes the rope broke sending him right into the tongue of the trailer which he fell over breaking the fall with his right arm. He was in a lot of pain and my insensitivity couldn't stop laughing! He assured us he was okay and so we left.

Traffic was horrible, another lesson for me in patience and flexibility and it took us about 13 hours to make an 8 hour trip. We got to San Diego about 11:00 p.m. to find my Dad had gone to bed already. My Mom told us he was in a lot of a pain (even though he hadn't mentioned it the three times I’d talked to him on the phone that day) and had even slightly blacked out from the pain a few times on the way home! I felt like a major jerk. He got into the doctor the next week and nothing was broken but it still hurt so they sent him to an orthopedic specialist who found a tear in his rotator cuff. He had to have surgery a couple weeks ago and is now going through a long recovery process. now! All because of our move L He’s in good spirits but you can pray for him that he’ll have  complete recover as its been limiting his availability to get work. Unfortunately, again, it’s a flexibility issue, he can’t really move his arm.