Car School

 

Have you ever been to “Car School”? That’s the “school” where the Lord has taught us many lessons over the years. And I keep thinking we should be getting a diploma anytime now, but the Lord still has other lessons for us to learn.

Most of those lessons were teaching us how to trust God and develop our character and patience. Our first car in Brazil was a 1968 Land Rover Series 2. How I had always longed to have a Land Rover. I remembered an ad I saw in National Geographic magazine in the early 70’s: “There are three ways to get to South America; boat, air and Land Rover!” I had learned to drive in my cousin’s Jeep in Virginia. My friend Tommy and I had built two dune buggies when we were in college. I never cared for beautiful, sleek, or fast cars; for me it was always 4WD, off road utilitarian vehicles. The muddier the better and the Land Rover was ideal for that! It got us the 200 kilometers from Manaus to where we were trying to contact the hostile Waimiri Atroari tribe in 1975. In 1980 when I was invited by the Brazilian Indian agency to take part in the expedition to contact the Uru-Eu-Wau-Wau tribe, we loaded up our trusty Land Rover and moved to Porto Velho where we lived for over 20 years. Our daughter Krista was about 6 years old and “Landie” began to have starting problems. But every time we had them we would stop and pray and ask the Lord to “fix” our car. No matter what I did under the hood, I could not figure out why the starter was working so intermittently. Prayer worked! Until one day we prayed and it would not start at all. Krista said, “Maybe Jesus is going to the bathroom.” I got out, opened the hood, prayed some more, tightened battery cables, messed around with I don’t know what, and finally said “Lord, HELP!” We never had starting problems with “Landie” ever again. And what had initially been a $1200 (US Dollars) purchase, was worth $2400 when we sold it in 1981. Whoever heard of a car appreciating in value?

We went through several vehicles the next 30+ years, each one teaching us lessons on stewardship, faithfulness, prayer, and many other things, like patience, learning to listen to what God was saying to us, but sometimes not learning. Like the time I went out and bought a 1980 4-ton Ford diesel truck. I thought this would be a good choice. Diesel was about half the price of gasoline. We could haul people in the back of the truck. We prayed and I felt like this was what we should get. Sharon said we should set a limit of how much we would pay. But the seller would not come down on his price and I bought it anyway much to her dismay! That old truck became a spiritual battleground, and a drain on our resources. It was very high maintenance. And to top it off, Brazil re-wrote their transit laws and it was now illegal to carry passengers in the backs of trucks. We now had to squeeze everyone into the front seat, or hide them under tarps. Finally after a year or so we decided to sell the truck. It had failed us too many times. The guy who bought it fixed it up and he said that it never ever gave him problems after that. “Lord, what are you trying to teach us in this?”

We needed a car, and found a Volkswagen Bug for a reasonable price. I had our mechanic friend have a look at it and he approved it. One week later it was in the shop for engine, transmission, brakes, suspension, just about everything but the body. We spent way more than we paid for it, and we knew that we had jumped the gun again with our auto purchase. Dreams of having a Land Rover again were constant ever since we had sold our first Land Rover. Then one day I felt the Lord saying to me, “Give your VW to a Brazilian missionary couple.” He spoke the same to Sharon, but she said, “Lord, please speak to Rick about this first.” A few days later I happened to mention to her what I was thinking, and together we decided to donate our only car. I thought, “Maybe the Lord will give us a new Land Rover (since they were now being manufactured in Brazil).”  But we had to learn the lesson of contentment. The couple we gave our VW to were profoundly grateful. It was the type of car they had been praying for. Now they could take their kids to school in the city and do their outreaches. It gave them mobility later when they moved to the extreme Northern city of Boa Vista, near the Guyana and Venezuelan borders to establish a YWAM (Youth With A Mission) base there. When they were sharing in one of their supporting churches how God had supplied them a car, one of the elders in the church said, “Ah, they’re just rich Americans and have other cars.” They responded, “No, Rick and Sharon have no other vehicles.” The man was flabbergasted and burst into tears for he had several cars himself.

We thought that now God would give us another car right away; but He didn’t! We were without a single car for four years. Everytime I wandered into a used car lot looking longingly at potential vehicles the Lord would say, “What are you doing here, Rick?” I would respond, “Uh, just looking Lord!” He would say, “Get back on that bike. You need the exercise anyway.” Four years car-less for an American is almost unthinkable. We walked, rode bikes, took busses, rode with friends, in fact we were living the same lifestyle as many of the people we were ministering to. Between 1997 and 2001 we logged over 1000 hours of bus travel. Some of the people in the churches said, “You guys are just like us.” Not having a car amazed everyone and opened up new doors for the gospel that we never imagined.

Then in 2001 we finally received our new Land Rover Defender. God had given us the car of our dreams. But there were still many lessons to learn with this. We came up to the states in 2003 intending to stay only for a year in order to help my mother who was deteriorating fast with Alzheimers. Our Land Rover stayed in Brazil with Krista and her husband. He wrecked it, fixed it, then they came to the states. Then he left it with a friend of his instead of in the hands of a missionary couple we told him to leave it with. One night some cowboys took it out for a joy ride flipped it over, seriously injuring one of the cowboys (who later died of his injuries.) When we went back to Brazil 9 months later and it was still in a repair shop with nothing having been done to it, I was sad to see it in that state, yet I felt no emotion for that “dream car.” I was reminded of Job 1:21 “The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away. Blessed be the name of the LORD.” It was HIS car. We returned to the USA and left the management of the repairs to a friend, and asked him to sell it for us. Months went by, over a year and finally we had a buyer, another missionary friend who ended up not being able to pay for it and in the end he never did. While that placed us in a financial bind, we eventually felt led to forgive and forget his debt to us.

Some of the principal lessons we have learned through our cars are: 1. Hold them lightly, with an open hand. It’s only a tool which the Lord has given us and He can provide. 2. Be content with what you have. 3. Take good care of what you have. Do the maintenance. Change the oil. 4. Be patient. God will provide in His timing. Ever since we came to the USA in 2003 and began making trips all over the country and back and forth to Brazil in ministry, we have received two cars as donations. The first, a Toyota Minivan, came through the generosity of one of our faithful partners. We drove it to almost 300,000 miles until we were afraid to make any more long trips in it. It had served well. Then a childhood friend stepped in with a donation of a really fine Mercedes SUV with 4wd. That car served us since we picked it up in California with 94,000 miles on it. It was a very generous gift, and it served us very well. I was thankful to God and my friend every time we drove. But as we were approaching 300,000 miles with it began to need lots of fixing – more than the value of the car. It needed over $6000 in repairs. And we felt that we should retire that much loved vehicle and use it on the farm.

Our mechanic and friend had a high mileage Honda Civic Hybrid for sale at a very reasonable price and we purchased it. It was much smaller, and stuff that we were used to carrying in the SUV no longer fit. It was so low to the ground it was harder to get in and out, and would sometimes hit things that stuck up more than 4 or 5 inches. But it was definitely fuel efficient. We travelled to Nashville, Kentucky, Miami and other places in order to do Kingdom business. And as I write this, we wonder what adventure our next vehicle will be. We have now passed the 303,000 mile point, and everything still works. So I told Sharon that we could keep running it until it reaches 500 thousand miles! But hopefully the Lord will provide our next vehicle sooner than that. Whatever He wants is what we want. The same is true in everything we own. We don’t really own them, we are only stewards of them. Computers, furniture, appliances, houses, etc. are the Lord’s. May we all endeavor to be faithful stewards. There are many more “Car School” lessons that we have learned so stay tuned.