The Infamous St. Louis Trip

The first stop on our journey this fall was St. Louis, MO. Missouri was the state of my birth and I hadn't been back since I was a little girl. I wanted to see what it was like, so I was excited to go! On the way to St. Louis we stopped in KY to visit with family and get a good night's sleep. Before pulling out the next day, I noticed some green fluid coming out of our truck. Apparently that funny smell and the lack of cool air conditioning was due to some problem with the coolant. So the rest of our traveling team drove on to St. Louis while we stayed in KY to find out what was wrong and fix the problem. We are so thankful that we had family in KY to help us out! Jonathan's sister gave me and our little guy a place to nap while she took Jonathan around to repair shops in order to diagnose the problem. Thankfully through the help of friends the leak was fixed at no cost and we were able to get on the road the next day.

Once in St. Louis, I started feeling like I was coming down with whatever cold Ethan had had the week before. Fever, chills...you name it, I had it. By the end of the week I was getting a little concerned for the baby, so I tried to get into see an obgyn, but no one would take an "out-of-towner." So they sent me to the emergency room. I knew I was sick. I just wanted them to check the baby and make sure everything was fine there. After drawing blood, they found I had a low white blood count and high blood pressure and didn't know what was causing it. They wanted to keep me overnight in order to watch me. Oh boy! Hospitals aren't the best place in the world to recover from an illness because I knew every ten minutes they would be coming in to do something to me, so there went my idea of sleeping! Finally they did take an ultrasound of the baby and found all the be well. At this point I was about 16 weeks along. My husband and I asked if they would be so kind as to tell us whether it was a boy or a girl. So one good thing about the hospital stay was finding out we were having another BOY! Anyway, after much pleading and begging on my part to be released the following day, they finally let me go after reviewing my blood tests and telling me I had a virus. Thank you very much. I really could have told them that from the beginning. Maybe they needed some more money?? I did realize the importance of taking it easy. I am one to keep going and going whether I'm pregnant or not.

Well, the same night I entered the hospital, my husband went home to take care of our little guy. After putting him to bed, he found out someone had hit our truck while backing out of the parking lot. Upon coming inside, he realized our trailer plumbing was backed up somewhere. He gave up for the night and went to bed :-). I spent the next week recovering and my husband worked on fixing all the other problems. We had to pack up our overnight bags and camp out at the Pastor's house while our trailer was being fixed. Once the trailer was fixed, our truck went in for repairs. By the end of the week our trailer's plumbing was backed up again. At this point, the rest of the team was ready to move on, so we stayed behind once again to take care of our problems. We are so thankful for the pastor and his family who so graciously hosted us several times throughout the week. After revisiting the repair shop on Monday, our trailer was "good to go." We were just ready to pull out of town for the next week of meetings when our trailer got stuck in a ditch after a sharp turn! Thankfully, we were still in town and the Pastor was able to call someone to help us get out. Praise the Lord that our trailer came out of the ditch all in one piece. (I have to admit that I went inside while they were trying to move the trailer. I couldn't handle the suspense or the possibility of our "house-on-wheels" crashing before my eyes.)

As we pulled out of St. Louis, we have never been so thankful for the many we know were praying for our safety and grace to face every trial. After traveling about 3 hours, the work the repair shop had done on our trailer was "falling apart." Thankfully my resourceful husband took pictures of the damage and was able to salvage it before it fell off on the side of the road. And praise the Lord for the reimbursement coming our way for the poor quality of work by the repair shop.

The story does end well, don't worry! We arrived in Greeley, CO safe and sound, in one piece, plumbing working, truck fixed and a healthy family. Hopefully we won't keep up our tradition of coming into the next few weeks of meetings a day late!

My purpose for describing in detail all we went through is coming in the next post. This one's getting too long!!