The Mission Link

A travel story by Jessica Côté, CRWM Canada 

A group of us were travelling from Burlington, Ontario to Grand Rapids for our annual Regional Missions Moblizer conference.  It was July 9th, and it was HOT!  We were travelling in more than 1 car.  One group went on ahead, and I was in the second car, with Al Karsten (CRWM North American director) and Steve Kabetu from Race Relations.

We were sitting in one of our ‘older’ agency vehicles - the shiny, and well working new one had already left - and noticed the AC just wasn’t working.  Now my car has no AC, my house has AC but barely used, so I didn’t think it was too big a deal.  But the others, well, AC was a necessity.  We looked around the parking lot, voila! another agency car was just sitting there, begging to be taken for a ride.  We piled in.  Note, this car was older than the first, but the AC worked!  Yeah!

 We’re on our way, travelling along.  Al is driving, at a nice pace.  We are cool and comfortable, and about 1/2 hour from the Canada-US border.  Then it happened…

I was sitting in the front, and I noticed the dashboard lights flickering a little.  Uh Oh.  I glanced at Al, I could tell he noticed too… After some fiddling, the dash lights went off altogher.  We started to slow down.  I glanced over again at Al, and saw the speedometer read 160 km per hour!  (For those who prefer miles, that’s a whopping 100 miles!)  There is just no way that was possible, we were slowing down.  An even bigger UH OH.

The car lost power, we had to pull over.  At this point there wasn’t even enough juice for the signal lights, those poor other drivers who had no clue what we were doing… 

So, there we were, the 3 of us stranded on the side of the highway.  Did I mention it was hot!?!  Have you ever sat next to a 4 lane highway when the temp was hovering around 100 Fahrenheit?  HOT!

Okay, we will call for help.  Al on his phone, Steve on his.  (Yeah, I don’t own a cell phone, so I was staring at traffic, counting cars.)  I was not sure who either of them were calling, so I asked, shall we call the other car, can come back to get us?  You would never guess, but none of us even had the number of the other car’s driver! 

After awhile, through calling the office, and other people, we finally reached the other car.  They had been waiting for us at the Tim Horton’s in Sarnia.  They came back to get us, but Al had to stay with the car.  The tow truck had been called, and with impeccable timing, the tow truck and the other car showed up at the same time. 

Steve and I piled in the nice cool and comfortable car, while Al climbed in with the tow truck driver.  And on we went to Grand Rapids. 

All of this happened and the excitement of the conference hadn’t even begun!

The car, by the way, was repaired, nothing significant, just alternator issues.  Al made it to Grand Rapids just a few hours after we did.  (And the AC was still working!)

As someone who attends an “intentionally diverse” Christian Reformed Church, I have been pondering this wise gentleman’s question.

What are your thoughts on the matter? We’d like to hear from you!

We at the Grand Rapids office of Christian Reformed World Missions are in the midst of a remodeling project that will require all of us to be relocated to a makeshift set of workspaces in the cafeteria for three to four months. In the meantime, we are frantically cleaning out our spaces, as well as the random closets and files we’re each responsible for.

I’ll have more to say, and some pictures of the process, soon, but for now, here are a few of the fun things we’ve found:

1) a stuffed penguin (not a plush stuffed penguin–a TAXIDERMIED stuffed penguin. I tell my boss frequently that the penguin is “staring at me!” but she won’t take it down. seriously, wouldn’t you be afraid of this?)

2) several cassette players (a few that look like this and had everybody saying, “I had this exact cassette player when I was a kid!”)

3) more books than we know what to do with, including, “Management trends of the 80’s” and other fun titles

4) Binders, binders, binders

5) a Kodak “Disc” camera, circa 1984

We are praying that we will give each other much grace in the tense, chaotic weeks and months to come. We are reminded quite frequently to “keep smiling!”,  and we are trying to do so . . .

Have you done any spring cleaning lately?  

I’m quite embarrassed to admit that my desk looked like this
BEFORE we started “the move” . . .
                                                                                                              Lorraine Woodward

So we added a new “I heart Johanna” page to our website. Check it out!

Who is your favorite missionary?

Our very own Ruth Padilla-DeBorst was interviewed in this month’s issue of Christianity Today. Check it out!

Ruth is also the host of our brand-new curriculum for youth and adults, Plugged-In to Missions. Get plugged in today!