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Van Given to The Cerces
A beautiful, very low mileage Chevy G20 conversion van was just given to The Cerces. We were singing several weeks ago at a church in Southwest Missouri and a Pastor and his wife, from a nearby town, came to the concert to hear us. The neighboring Pastor's church did not have a service that night, and they had not seen or heard us since we sang at their church almost a year ago. They arrived early and looked in the parking lot for our van. We had been traveling for several years in a Ford E150 conversion van, and the Pastor did not see our vehicle in the lot. He asked me where our conversion van was. I told him the sad story. A little over a year ago we had the engine removed from our van and totally rebuilt by the well-know company in our town that supplies rebuilt engines to a Four-State area. Between that company and the shop that removed the engine and re-installed it, the bill came to $2200. We were very satisfied with the price, feeling that it would help afford us dependable transportation for several more years. Well, it ran OK for about 20,000 miles, then increasingly rough for the next 30,000 or so miles. (We never have been able to determine if the fault lay with the engine rebuilding company or the engine installing company). I told the Pastor that we were traveling through Jasper, Alabama at 1:30 in the morning several weeks earlier when the engine finally blew up. I told him that we had the van (and us) towed to my in-laws' home 70 miles away from where the engine blew, and our beautiful conversion van that we loved so dearly is now sitting in its final resting place in a salvage yard in Pell City, Alabama. We borrowed transportation to get us through our weekend concerts in Alabama and then rented a vehicle to get us about 600 miles home with our equipment and luggage. I told the Pastor that our youngest daughter and her husband were kind enough to loan us their Bronco SUV, that they had not been using and were probably going to sell soon, while we were in transition. I explained that it was very hard to squeeze us, our equipment and luggage into the Bronco, but it had been a God-send until we were able to buy a new van. I went back to making the final adjustments on our sound system and we soon sat in the front row of the church, waiting for the concert to start. Imagine my surprise when the Pastor's wife came up behind me and told us that the Lord had directed them to GIVE us their very beautiful and very low mileage Chevy conversion van! I was speechless. She explained that they had not been using it and it was just sitting on their property. She explained some repairs would be needed to bring it to the level we need for the kind of travel we do (we will travel 50,000 to 60,000 miles over this next year), but these were quite incidental and we were more than welcome to take the van as our own. Repairs are now underway and we will soon be in our new van. It is the same size, body style and layout of our previous conversion van--only much newer, VERY plush and much more comfortable to ride in. All of our equipment, product and luggage will fit exactly as we have been accustomed to, and we have been upgraded, by the Lord and His wonderful people, to very dependable, comfortable and economical transportation. Many thanks to Pastor and Mrs Tim Mielke of Cave Springs Assembly of God in Cave Springs, Missouri. We're glad that they did not have a church service that particular night and that they listened to the voice of the Lord and obeyed. Our prayer is that their generous investment to our ministry will yield a rich harvest of souls, and that God will continue to bless them, their family and their church as they faithfully serve Him.
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