(Suuuuuppppeeerrrr late post – but better late than never)
So this past December I went to Urbana student missions conference in St.Louis, MO. The theme this year was “What Story Will You Tell?” – and now here I am, writing my story to share with you.

Now I could tell you about all the awesome things I experienced for the first time at Urbana. Things like how awesome the worship/singspiration was (LANGUAGES WOO!); how I learned and heard so much during morning bible studies and during each session speaker. I could tell you about how I felt challenged in my faith or how I want to do and serve so much more now that I’m home.

But I’m not going to talk about any of that today.

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This past weekend my boyfriend and I visited a friend out in Burlington after dropping off another friend at a conference in Oakville that morning (we had stayed over at another friend’s place for convenience).

On our way back to Oakville to pick up my friend from the conference we stopped by our other friend’s place to pick up something my boyfriend had left behind. Minutes after leaving he noticed something wrong with the car. He pulled over and got out to check, it was a flat tire. Luckily we had not gone far from his friend’s place so we slowly drove back there to change the spare tire in (while I waited inside his friend’s place playing with his cat). After changing the spare in we left, but pulled over to talk for a bit about what we should do. Spare tires aren’t really meant for highway driving, and at this point we were still in Oakville with a friend that needed to be picked up. After talking and discussing with our parents as to what we should do, we decided to drive slower on the highway after picking up my friend from the conference.

The highway ride back was mostly smooth despite the fact that we were driving 15-20km under the limit. Just as we were about to get off the highway my boyfriend noticed something at the last minute on the road in front of him, it was a pothole (a fairly large one too). Unfortunately a car was in the lane beside us (to our right was the concrete barrier)…so over the pothole we went.

*thump thump thump thump*

It was obvious that the spare did not survive going over the pothole. We carefully pulled over and stopped the car to survey the damage. It was bad. Since we were metres away from getting off the highway, we decided to very carefully drive off (with the emergency lights on) it so we could call for help. A minute after we noticed there was a car driving very close behind us in the rear-view mirror. It was a police car! Even better, after we had gotten off the highway and thanked him for escorting us off safely, we had noticed that it was a highway patrol car with a LED sign on it. Specifically the ones that light up to redirect traffic! – He had redirected traffic around us, yay!

By now it was almost 1am, not wanting to keep my friend out so late (or leave my boyfriend by himself), I gave him my metropass so that he could get home by taking the bus near where we had stopped. Afterwards we called CAA to try and get the car towed to a nearby Canadian Tire, unfortunately because my boyfriend’s membership had be mysteriously cancelled he couldn’t get it authorized without his dad. With that plan scrapped he called his dad. 40mins later he was down where we were (with my boyfriend’s mom). They patched up the initial flat tire temporarily so that we could drive it over to the nearby Canadian tire (just down the street from where we were). We abandoned the car for the night in the parking lot and were dropped off at my house by his parents.

The next morning we back to Canadian Tire to get replacement tires for the flats. My boyfriend’s dad had told us to get some “cheap Michelin tires”, to which the autoshop clerk chuckled when we told him. However after some more talking and stock checking, we found that we were in luck. On the floor, they had some brand new Michelin tires (2015) that were from a discontinued line, and therefore a fraction of the price than the others we looked at (by that I mean they were $40/each). An hour later we left with brand new front tires and a spare that was from the other old pair.

So that was our weekend adventure. The reason I had decided to post this was because after all that, I felt incredibly thankful and protected by God’s grace (also amazed too hehehe). We had gotten the first flat tire near my boyfriend’s friend’s house; then had a police car escort us safely off the road after our 2nd flat tire. My boyfriend’s dad drove all the way down at 2am (or well 3am…because daylight savings time derp) to help patch the first flat and then drive us back to my house. Lastly, we were able to get an amazing deal for the replacement tires (something that the shop clerk really didn’t think could ever happen).

Despite all these hurdles, we came out safe. It could’ve been a lot worse; we could’ve panicked (my boyfriend did a bit), but I felt really calm and peaceful (for the most part lol), and I’m thankful to God for keeping us safe. 🙂

(It’s been a while eh?)

Today I met up with a childhood friend for dinner and had the most spiritually delightful and encouraging time I’ve had in a little while. Being all caught with the youth ministry, work (which got really hectic all of a sudden) and now a relationship made me feel a little spiritually distant and a bit drained (mentally and physically) recently. But just reconnecting and fellowshipping with my friend tonight was absolutely wonderful and uplifting.

Fiona was my first Christian friend that I had made outside of church, wayyyy back when I was in elementary school. She moved back to Australia (where her family was) after the school year was over (or not long after – don’t quite remember) and I didn’t see her for a whole year. No contact or anything really (cuz well, internet was a luxury then lolll), but when she came back the year after I remember I was so happy to see her, and in that time we used to literally talk for hours on the phone after school and whatnot. Our families were also fairly close and Fiona was also the person who inspired me to learn to play the violin (though I suck at it to this day hahaha). We parted ways again after elementary school, but still kept in touch until her family moved out of the neighbourhood. But I never forgot her, and always found each other again through mutual relationships through people we knew hahaha. Seeing her again today made me think about that time again (nostalgiaaaa – oh dear I feel old), and made me feel incredibly thankful and blessed that God has blessed us both with such a wonderful relationship that distance and time clearly hasn’t broken. I hope and pray that this is friendship will continue to flourish under God’s eyes (and be a blessing to the people around us ^^)