So, we have big news to announce.
No, it’s not the birth of our little girl yet. Apparently she’s on her own timetable and didn’t get the memo that her due date was last week…
But, we have a car to bring her home in.
We’ve been praying about our vehicle situation for a while now. Our two trucks have been temperamental lately.
While they both still serve their purposes, reliability has become and issue, especially in regards to traveling over the mountains that we cross leaving our home town of Jacmel. So, we’re hoping to return to a point where the little truck (Ford F150) is essentially the work truck for anything in Jacmel, and the big truck is ready for out of town work. At this point, a new wheel bearing in the little one and a new battery for the big one should get us back in business on that end.
However, in addition to reliability, we’ve been praying about a vehicle that can:
(a) hold a child seat, since both our trucks are single bench seats
(b) be safe to travel to Port Au Prince when necessary (this includes reliability, but also working air conditioning so that we can keep our windows up while in traffic as that is a more dangerous situation)
and (c) carry other people when they come to visit (we’ve typically had to borrow a car when people come to visit).
All that said, I’ve been keeping an eye out as we’ve been praying about a car that would work for our needs.
In the end, we actually have to thank God for the opportunities He showed us, and that we feel He has finally provided a great car for us.
Two weeks ago, we came across a 2000 Isuzu Trooper and took it for a test drive.
It looked good, but we still continued to pray about it, eventually leading to us putting a small down payment on it of $200.
Then, we got back to praying that if this was to be our vehicle, God would provide the rest of the funding. Within that week, we received two donations. One that was for $2000, and one that was for $1500. So we received $3500 of the $4000 that the car cost within the first week, and someone else has already expressed interest to help us with the rest.
So, here is our new vehicle, with my parent’s Ford Explorer for a visual reference as well.
Isuzu is a brand that is commonly sold in Haiti, so parts should be easier to find that for our Ford and Chevy.
Also, this has 110,000 miles on it, with very little rust underneath since it spent most of it’s life in Virginia and Texas.
It passed PA state inspections already, but I will go to a friend’s garage and we’ll do a little maintenance work together before we send it down.
Additionally, please keep it in prayer as are still working out the details of when it will go down, and the details of how everything will work out financially, as shipping and import fees will probably be about the same as the purchase price.
And, please continue to pray for Jamie and our little girl. They are both healthy, but we’re anxiously awaiting her arrival now that she’s a week behind the doctor’s prediction 🙂
