Well, it is as the old song they used to sing on “Hee Haw” that goes” if it wasn’t for bad luck I wouldn’t have any luck at all “; today is one of those days. Our mission today was to visit the small congregation east of Yendi located at the village of Nyangpala . I forgot to get diesel in the green pick up yesterday so I filled up before Timothy arrived this morning. As usual after the three of us loaded up in the truck we drove through Yendi and Timothy purchased his breakfast. This trip takes about 75 minutes. About 45 minutes into the trip I noticed my horn didn’t work. A few minutes later we noticed the air conditioner fan wasn’t working. I got a bad feeling about all of this but we arrived at our place of worship so I positioned the truck where I thought if it wouldn’t start, we could easily get to the front of the vehicle. I told myself not to worry about it and do my work as planned.
The congregation is in the middle of building a concrete block structure so we worshipped at a church member’s house. The gifts that we presented to the church were very well received. Timothy and I taught my lesson about dreams and visions. At the end of services another nearby small congregation arrived. Elijah, a church leader at Nyangpala had invited them to come worship but one of the visiting men said they knew the room the church was meeting in was small so they had their worship and then came to visit Nyangpala.
There are very few men who attend at Nyangpala so building a structure is difficult. The congregation has not had a good experience building a church building. The last structure they built they didn’t take our advice not to build a wide building made of mud balls. The roof of the building was very heavy which caused the walls to splay out and collapse the roof. This time they made cemented gravel blocks and the walls look good. At a meeting after services, they requested financial help so we matched funds for the roof. They were happy with the arrangement. Brother Elijah and his wife provided a nice meal of spicy oiled rice with meat for our lunch.
Now it was time to leave. Guess what? The battery was too low to start the engine. It took about 45 minutes to find a battery that we could use to start the pickup. An auto electrician allowed us to borrow a battery. I promptly installed the battery and the engine started. I purposely took off the positive battery cable and the engine died. I knew the alternator was shot. The engine did spark(started) again. Now we made plans to go back towards Yendi and stop at Zabzugu which is a 10-minute drive to see if we could find a battery to buy. No dice! The mechanic did test the alternator and he said it was not working. In the meantime I had called Gomda, our mechanic and he sent a man with a new battery. We met him and his apprentice in Gnani and exchanged the batteries. We sent the borrowed battery back to the lender. Needless to say we did arrive back at the compound around 2:30pm.
Today was Yendi market day. After we unloaded the pickup, sent Timothy on his way, and took the pickup to Gomda to be repaired. From there we went into the market to buy fresh vegetables. When we got back to the house, David, a brother from the Church at Jakpumba, was outside the gate waiting on us. He just came for a visit and brought us some yams and a dove. It was a very nice gesture.
Remember, I say it wasn’t my lucky day. I got into the old van to go to Kulkpeni tonight and the front passenger tire was flat! When it rains it pours! We are just happy the Lord allowed us to get to Yendi safely and we have another standby vehicle to go out for bible class.
That was our day. Hope you had a good Lord’s Day as well. God bless!
In His service,
Stephen and Kandie Taylor
With Skeeter
