Oil Leaks and Head Lights

Last week we headed interior on Friday instead of our usual day - Thursday.  In spite of recent rains and the threat of rain showers, we opted to take the yellow sand rail/dune buggy.  We left super early in hopes of stopping by the house of a Sr. Walter whom we'd met a few weeks ago and had accepted one of the solar Bible players.  

Everything seemed to be going dandy as we got ready to leave when we got a message from the third on our list of students canceling her Bible lesson.  Ah well, no problems, right!  It would give us more time to visit with the others, right?  Well, it should have.  As we got close to the place to turn off to visit our Bible player person, the oil light on the dashboard came on.  

Sure enough a little tube had come loose and almost all of the motor oil had leaked out.  We had just passed the first house of a little community.  Engines don't go without motor oil.  So Byron traded his helmet for a hat and started walking to see if anyone in the little place sold motor oil.  I looked for shade.

Most little interior communities have some sort of general store in the front room of someone's house.  It might have some basics like dried beans and rice.  It might have cold drinks.  Every once in a while you see a little homemade sign advertising two liter bottles of gasoline.  

Bigger communities have gas stations.  On our normal route we don't see any gas stations until we get close to our destination.  Some places have little "garages" that fix flat tires which is an opportunist business since dirt/rock roads make for lots of holes in tires.

Byron walked about a mile and found a tire fix it place and they had one quart of oil!  We sort of needed four quarts, at least three.  But they were nice and told him that the next place down the road was sure to have some and pointed in the general direction.  And some one loaned him a bicycle.  Off he went while I waited by the sand rail and wondered if he'd ever come back and warded off the "help" of a few well-intended passer-byers.

Byron got the oil he needed and rode the bike back to the first place.  The man there felt sort of sorry for him at this point and offered a ride the rest of the way on the back of his motorcycle.  Byron got everything taken care of and an hour later we were able to resume our ride.  We made a few new friends in the process.  We always try to ask people their names and write them down for future reference, by the way.  

With the time lost, we didn't turn off to see Sr. Walter but headed on down to Lages instead.  There weren't too many mud puddles, so I even got a turn to drive for a bit.  I ended up behind a slow, dust making truck that I couldn't seem to pass, but that's another story.

We arrived in town, found some shade, ate our picnic lunch, and checked our phone messages.  Amazingly enough we have faster phone data in the middle of this little interior town that I do at my house in a bigger town closer to big cities.  Ugh, no data!  I needed to buy more phone credit and so did Byron as the end of the month was upon us.  

No problem!  We drove up in front of the little inn where we sometimes say and were able to borrow some free wifi for a few minutes.  Alas we found out only to find out that #1 Bible student was not going to be at home!  Things seemed to not be going our way.  We have three students on Thursdays - two in town and one on the way home in another place.  The first is at 1:00 pm, the second is around 2:30 and the last is as soon as we can get there.

Alright we can be flexible and optimistic.  So Byron whipped out his GPS and looked for some of the roads on the back side of town that we had not checked out yet.  We also wanted to look for a place in one of the neighborhoods to show the Jesus film soon, so off we went.

The sky started getting blacker and blacker with bigger and bigger rain clouds moving in... Sure enough rain was all around us.  Byron found a tree and we parked for a bit.

Before long the sun was shining again and we went on to our normally #2 student who was "only" student for the day.  The lesson went fine enough.  I did a little story time with a younger sister.  One of our student's brothers listened to the lesson and her mother.  They gave us some fresh lemon juice and cake and we were on our way home.

I think we both felt a little let down.  The day just hadn't gone as planned, but we had tried to make the best of it.  We left Lages around 4:00 pm.  Our trip home take about three hours.  The sun goes down faithfully at about 6:00 pm.  

The rains we had seen all around had hit our home route leaving some big puddles and making for some slow going.  We got back to that same community where we had stopped earlier in the day and Byron decided to stop and make sure about why the low beams on his headlights weren't coming on.  It was dark already so he stopped under a street light.  

We had stopped very close by at a little snack bar a few weeks ago.  A lot of children had seen us that day and came over to look at the yellow car.  We met and spoke to some of the adults of the little "town."  As Byron got out some tools to see what was up for the headlights, a small crowd started forming mostly young adult men, one older man, two girls and one friendly drunk.

While Byron worked I was talking to the two girls.  I thought I'd seen one of them on our other trip.  It seemed that I was going to have enough time, so I got out two Wordless Ministry bracelets and asked them if they would like to have one.  Then I gave my pitch about listening to the story first.  They were very interested and Byron was having some problems with the lights, so I took my time.  

Meanwhile Mr. Drunk wanted whatever I was giving away.  Oh, my!  It was quite a scene.  He was friendly but a little insistent.  I was, too!  I said, Not today.  I was nice and I did give him a little Chick tract about God's love.  

I also talked to the older man and found out we knew a cousin of his from our other visit.  We talked and I told him who we were.  He told me a little of his life story.  Byron was about finished.  One of the younger men was holding a flashlight for him and other were offering advice.  

Byron asked if maybe they would be interested in us coming back sometime to show a film about Jesus.  Several responded positively.  We hope it will work out to go back soon.  

We've been wanting to stop and get to know more people in this little place.  God had us stop twice in the same day!