Survival Skills

"It's totally empty," says an AAA counselor. "There are no points of interest. We don't recommend it." The 287 mile stretch of U.S. 50 running from Ely to Fernley, Nev. passes nine towns, two abandoned mining camps, a few gas pumps and the occasional coyote. "we warn all motorist not to drive there," says the AAA rep, "unless they're confident of their survival skills."

a quote from Life Magazine describing Nevada's U. S. 50 as the Lonelist Road in America.

I suppose everyone needs a desert experience, Moses had one and a burning bush appeared, the Israelites wandered there for 40 years, Jesus had one and was tempted by Satan. So I guess it was time for the Cartwright's to have a desert experience.

We were driving across country from South Carolina to California, as part of a bigger journey to Costa Rica. We are relocating there to finish raising our budget. We had a two week trip planned. We stopped along the way to visit some friends, see some National treasures, and to attend General Council in Phoenix Arizona. On our last day of driving, we hoped in the car to make the last 7 hours of driving, and we noticed the car making a really odd sound. If you read the previous blog, you know that we had heard the noise from before, and I asked for prayer. The noise had stopped, and I really believed that God had answered the prayers, and "healed" our car. The noise turned into the car not acting right. This was at 8:00 in the morning. We had already loaded the car, and had checked out of the hotel.

Just to give you a picture of where we were. . . we were smack dab in the middle of NO WHERE. We had just driven about 4 hours the night before with only passing a few gas stations. Dave had been counting the cars that passed us, and for about 5 hours there had been 9 cars total that had passed us going in the opposite direction. When AAA named it the Lonelist Road in America it was for good reason.

Anyway, realizing we needed to find a place to have the car looked at, we realized we needed a plan. Right away we prayed. All four of us. Dave took us back to the hotel, and the girls and I were able to go back into the room. Dave took off with the car, and the trailor that has the things that we have left, after yard sales, give-aways, and long term storage. He manages to find a garage that can look at the car. They inspect it and tell us we need a new transmission.

Have you ever been at a place like this. . . a desert place. . . a lonely place. . .

It was a defining moment for our family. I really believe this.
I believe that God gives us what we need for that day.
And that day He gave us what we needed.

Writing this all out, I feel so silly for feeling like this was such a big defining moment, "so ya'll broke down in the desert, no big deal"
But we had just left our home, taken our kids out of a life that they loved, left family, dear friends, full time jobs, and a beautiful home, to follow after what we believed God had for us, only to be left alone in the desert.

We were not able to rent a car, as the closest place was 3 hours away, we couldn't rent a uhaul truck because there would have only been room for 3 of us, we had to be on a plane on Thursday, so we couldn't wait for it to be fixed. We were out of options. We were in a hotel room with 7 pieces of luggage, 2 girls, in the middle of the desert. It was a surreal experience.

There were so many emotions. .. they came in waves. . .But the common one, the one that prevailed, was

Thank You Lord. Thank you for keeping my family safe. Thank you for not letting us break down in the desert at night. Thank you for providing a hotel for my girls to be in. Thank you for keeping me in the palm of your hand, I don't deserve your kindness.

We were able to have family come and get us, and we made it back to Cali with all of our stuff, Our car is still in the desert, Dave and I will pick it back up on our back out, We flew back for a service we had scheduled in SC, and to pick up the Honda and drive it across country to a meeting called the compassion forum.

I am usually not a silver lining kinda girl. Normally I would be like, why did that have to happen, the cost of the repair is all we have left of our personal money, Maybe God is saying we shouldn't be doing what we are doing, we are not praying hard enough. . . ect.

But I was this time. I believe that it was exactly because people are praying for me, that God allowed us to make it to that town, and I believe that my family could have been harmed along the way except that we had prayer. I received 4 text messages and 1 facebook message from different people all telling me that they had been praying for my family. One person even woke up from a dream about us and begin to interceed for us.

So to end this very long post, We discovered that we have survival skills, we are confident of this. We spoke with our Father, We got on our knees, and we had faith. With these skills we can survive whatever the enemy tries to discourage us.