another broken bus story-

I've written a few broken bus stories on this blog- here is my latest:

last night the middle school ministry took the 8th graders to their annual goodbye party at the boardwalk in santa cruz. it was pretty much a perfect night. we had a good crowd of students, a good group of volunteers, the traffic was mellow, the boardwalk wasn’t crowded and the weather was perfect. I noticed that my cell phone battery was draining a lot faster than normal- and while we were at the boardwalk, it actually died (which is something that has never happened on a youth trip before.) I didn’t have a car charger and no one else had one that fit my phone.


after we went to the boardwalk, we went to seabright, where our high school team was waiting for us with a bbq and bonfire- again- everything was perfect. when it was time to leave, we got in the bus and drove off. while I was on HWY 17 I noticed that the power steering was a little stiff. I pulled over in Scotts Valley and could tell that we had lost it- and there was no way that I was going to take a bus full of students home on 17 with no power steering!

we called in the other cars who were with us and the high school team and got the students home safe. I stayed with the bus. dave called my favorite bus towing company, and they told me that they would be by in 45 minutes. so there I was, parked at a little church in scotts valley, waiting for a tow truck with just the bus and me and with no cell phone. I kind of started freaking out. something in me needed to have contact with the outside world! I saw a gas station over an overpass and thought they might have a car charger for my phone. I don’t really enjoy bridges, heights or edges- and especially when the go over HWY17 in the pitch black dark, but I went for it. I went to 2 gas stations, a grocery store and finally a quik stop to get this car charger. I was actually sprinting because I was afraid that the tow truck might come and I might miss it. they had the charger- I got it and sprinted back- all the way back to the overpass, over it, and back to the bus.

I was so relieved to see my phone charging up- I really can’t explain how excited that made me. the first call I made was to the tow company. they told me that the guy was 20 minutes out. then I called Deanna, then paco. the tow guy didn’t come for another hour. when he did get there, I discovered that he saw an accident and stopped to help even though they didn’t ask him to in order to get the commission. he told me that a little pulley under the hood has worn down and that kept the belts from staying tight and took out the power steering. it couldn’t be fixed, it had to be towed. when I got in the car, he said, “actually I was hoping that you would be the guy from the radio- I love that guy! I listen to him every day!” he was talking about my pastor, chip. I said, “yeah- he’s pretty great, I like listening to him too.” he said, “my lady lives right behind your church! I asked her, ‘can you just feel the presence of God radiating from that place?’ she said ‘no- actually they are kind of annoying- they’re really loud!’”

we actually had a great talk about some of the questions that he had about the church and the bible- he was a really cool guy. most of the tow guys I meet are pretty cool.

my journey over the hill started at about 8:30, and it ended at about 12:30am- sheesh! that vehicle…

well, at least everyonne got home safely, and I got a new story to tell-

God is love.

-rev-rob