21 November 2013

Sorry, there has been no blog posts for a few weeks.  I guess "busy" could be the reason, but there are others.  We continue to teach our classes, enjoying it immensely, and then....  We spent a delightful week with our daughter on the beach, enjoying the sun, the water, and the country.

Sister P will expound on that diversion, our week away.

Well, I get to blog about another "event."  We went to Puerto Plata.  About hour away, on a double lane highway, on a narrow road, much traffic, crazy Dominican drivers all over.  Well, we were coming home Sunday afternoon, driving about 50 MPH.

NOTE:  The Dominican drivers often strive to pass the slow moving vehicles, even with no space to do so and expect the oncoming traffic will get out of their way.  

We were minding our own business when one of those Dominican drivers decided to pass a slow moving vehicle, entering my lane, expecting me to do whatever was necessary to get out of his way to avoid a head-on collision.  I saw him enter my lane, coming straight for us, and I knew I had better do something, or "meet" him.  Didn't want to do that, so I quickly evaluated the side of the road.  On my right was a large ditch, which I didn't want to go into.  I had micro seconds to figure it out, so I decided I would drive as close to the ditch without going into it, trying to avoid this oncoming driver.  Then I saw TWO or THREE large boulders.

 This is what the under side of the car looked like.  That black thing was the "something" that held it all in, and now it wasn't.  There was oil all over the car, the street, the engine.  Nice huh?

Again, my choices were limited, to I decided I would try to take the least dangerous path and straddle the boulders.  I am sure it was the right decision, but wrong for the car.  We crashed up over the rocks, they broke into pieces, but before they did, they put a large hole in the oil pan, damaged the radiator, damaged the air conditioner, drained the transmission fluid, and threw oil all over everything, thus we started smoking as the oil burned on the hot engine.

I immediately pulled over.  Many locals came running over to see if all was OK.  We were, but the car probably had breathed it's last breath.  (We are still waiting to see if it is totaled or not.)  We called the President, he sent the assistants, and finally after four hours, had the car towed, and us returned to our apartment.  What a way to end a wonderful week.  But once again, Father is watching out for us.  We are car-less, depending on catching rides to the Institute, and depending on others, but we are healthy, fine and avoided something that could have been much worse.

Thanks for prayers, thoughts, and support from so many.