I was teaching science earlier in the school year, and when I came to the fact that the moon is 233,000 miles from earth, it hit me that the van I'd been driving had 270,000 miles on it.  We had been the distance from earth to the moon and about 1/5 of the way back!  Now our mechanic, John, is real good, but he wasn't good enough to get it to the point of passing inspection one last time.  So I did what any rural Mainer would do in this situation: I drove it illegally for two months.

Of course, it was only a matter of time until it had to be retired and I needed to replace it.  Then one day, on my way to work, I was listening to the Christian radio station.  This in itself is a rather rare occurrence, as I am an oldies fan.  Even more surprising, I didn't change the station when a two minute Bible lesson came on.  Not that I'm critical of Christian radio, but I find two minutes to be nowhere near long enough to be called a Bible lesson.  Anyway, the teacher was talking about God meeting our needs.  "Manna no longer falls from heaven like it did in the Old Testament.  Today, God usually meets needs through the church.  Therefore, we need to let our church families know when we have a need. A fellow believer is more likely to give you a car than to make payments on a car loan you took out when you couldn't afford it."

Hmmm...

That Sunday it was my turn to lead announcements in church.  I read through the weekly announcements, then spontaneously added our need for a van.  I didn't beg; I didn't even reference the radio broadcast.  I just said our van failed inspection, so if anyone knew of someone trying to sell one, please let me know.

That evening, the father of one of Rose's friends brought her home from youth group and stopped in our house.  "I have a van for you.  It runs fine, and it's inspected.  I'd like you to have it."  We were given the van as a gift!

I learned later that he had wanted to offer it to us for two months but didn't know how to approach us.  My announcement in church was the catalyst for him to make the offer.

God is so good!