Car story (to the tune of fortunately unfortunately)Background: This blog seems to have a lot of stories about my car. Well, only 6 according to the search, but it feels like a lot. This is number 7.
Last week I had this massive paeds exam- 3 hours of small scenarios where you would work through the cases from presentation, history, examination, differentials and investigations and treatment. It was kinda cool as you had to complete one section in the alloted time, before tearing the page off, and moving onto the next section. Made a few dumb errors, but I think it went ok.
Straight after my exam was Church camp up in Otaki (bout an hours and a half drive north). It was a shared camp with Kilbirnie Apostolic who our church is merging with. I was pretty tired as I'd been studying for the past 2-3 weeks, so I was looking forward to a fairly easy weekend. An unexpected highlight was volunteering to help with the mudslide. It was so much fun with all these kids eager to slide down this pvc 'slide' into a pool of mud. They all eventually got down- which was a real bonus. Seeing their smiles as they came back up the top having hit the pool at speed, was just awesome. Ok, so it doesn't sound like everyone's cup of tea, but I did have one go and it was FUN (although smelly). I seemed to make an impression with these kids as they ended up talking me into helping them on the confidence course too. Now I suck at these, but the kids seemed to get a lot out of it.
Now to the car. As we were staying off from the main camp site, we carpooled to meals and services. While driving back from breakfast on Sunday morning, my car cut out. I tried again, but the engine wouldn't pick up. So after pushing it to the side of the road, we trudged back to camp, doing the walk in about 15mins. Not knowing anything about cars, I managed to get some more knowledgable people to take a look at it. No joy their either. So reluctantly I called the AA, having had several bad experiences at waiting for them in the past. The AA lady was helpful, although the phone kept cutting in and out, which didn't exactly encourage me. About this time prayer seemed like a good idea. So I did. I managed to get rides for the people I was giving lifts to, but one guy, Mark, decided to hang with me (yay!). So Mark and I were getting our stuff into the car, when the AA showed up (yay, no waiting!). He did some tests, and decided that he had to tow me to the nearest garage as it seemed the ignition module had blown. Thankfully, Michael (my pastor) drove up to see how we were going just as we were about to be towed. So we threw all our stuff in his 4wd and Michael and Mark followed behind me and the AA guy. We left the car at the autoelectricians and Michael gave Mark and I a lift home.
Got a call from the autoelectrician the next day- $270 (Ouch). Went and played golf with some of the guys from cell group and then went to Michael and Gillian's for tea. When I got home, there was a message from Mum- "I think we've solved your car problem."
They had gone down to Lower Hutt to look for wallpaper samples and had gone into King Toyota for a look to 'see what was there'. Just come into the yard was a 97 Corolla, 19,500km (!?!!) for under $10,000. I should probably add that over summer we had been round looking for a low mileage cheap car, either for me or for them, with me 'inheriting' the old corolla, without much success. So within a matter of hours, Mum and Dad were owners of this near new car.
So what about my trusty Ford Laser? Well, it needed a warrant, so I went to the hardest place (VTNZ) cause they were the only ones who would do it then and there. The car sailed through. I took it round some of the local Upper Hutt second hand car dealers (the best place to sell second hand cars) and one of them had a list of people interested in cheap cars. Within the afternoon I had a buyer. Stoked.
So within a week I have gone from having a broken old car to a newish car with mod cons like powersteering, central locking and the buzzer that tells you that you've left your lights on =). I have no idea whether this was just a series of massive coincidences or an awesome God story. Ok, so I have a BIG idea, but I'll leave that up to you.
Oh yeah, I'm graduating in Dunedin next week for my thesis- yet strangely I'm very unexcited about the whole thing...
