“But I will sing of your strength, in the morning I will sing of your love; for you are my fortress, my refuge in times of trouble’.
Psalm 59:16
As we waited beside our broken-down car, Charles, the local with us, was able to hitchhike to the next village. He returned with a mechanic who patched the hole in the transmission, pumped new oil in and got it going. We were then able to limp some 100 kilometers to the nearest city, creeping over several mountain passes.
There we found a mechanic who took the transmission apart and pronounced it “terminally wounded.” We would have to order a new one from Germany. So, Charles took the three “orphans” along with his daughter and continued his journey to the East by bus. We got on another night bus and rode in the opposite direction, 12 hours back to the capital city, where I called Germany and ordered a rebuilt transmission.
When it came a week later, I had to go to the airport customs hall with the old transmission to get it. Since our car was an imported foreign one, in order to get any new parts shipped in, I had to surrender the old parts to customs.
Well, the customs man didn’t want to take the old transmission and instead wrote it into my passport, telling me that the next time we left the country by car I should take it with me. I wasn’t very happy with having to drag two transmissions with me to the bus stop and then home. But I wasn’t yet aware of what the Lord was doing with this. And you will find out his wonderful works in subsequent posts!