The evidence of God's provision has been so clear in our lives recently. That is Christian code for, "life has been rather stressful lately." As I remove my tongue from my cheek, I should introduce our actors today.
Cricket is what we call our 1990 Toyota Camry with 220,000 miles on it. Dolores is our 1999 Pontiac Grand Am with 160,000 miles. Her name means pain and she has frequently succeeded in living up it. Zungu (a take from "Mzungu" = "white man" in Swahili) is our 2005 Genuine Stella scooter. Melissa and I bought Zungu used last year and have had the most enjoyable time, puttering zoom-ily around Tulsa. We think Tulsa is the best town to own a scooter in because you can get everywhere easily on the city streets. Small streets are excellent on a scooter that tops out at 55mph – not very safe highway speeds in my book. Anyway, besides the four feet we own between us, this is our transportation lineup. As much as possible we try to use one car and the scooter to save on gas money, but we can't practically get rid of our second car. My medi cal school rotations take me so many different directions at such odd hours that we haven't figured out how to make a single vehicle plausible.
God's provision started with the front end of a Chrysler Pacifica (one of those weird station-wagons-on-steroids type SUVs). Three weeks ago the jock station wagon entered our automotive lives by picking a fight with Zungu at a stop light. The Chrysler won. I was riding alone and stopped at a light when I was rudely flipped backwards off my mount. Zungu went sliding off a couple yards on his right side, g rinding the 10mph worth of energy he had absorbed from the Chyrsler into the asphalt. I was entirely unhurt, landing flat on my back in the middle of the road. The Chrysler driver was horrified and apologetic, and had good insurance. After all the formalities and phone calls, I ended up pushing the non-functioning Zungu several miles home… which really wasn't so bad as it sounds. I rather enjoyed the nice weather. Also, Chyrsler-man was kind enjoy to hit me on a rare day in which I had no immediate obligations on my time – so I actually had time to push a scooter for a few miles. I recommend it for the soul actually. The end of the story is that we are now -1 scooter (hoping to repair it cheap, African fundi style) and +1 insurance $. We sat on the money, not sure what it should be used for, but God opened a door to apply it very quickly.
God's provision continued two weeks later when, after several months of struggles, our Dolores went to the great salvage yard in the sky (North Tulsa actually). Can I just take a moment to say that it makes me secretly happy that old man Cricket still drives fine? Dolores' non-bang, extra-whimper exit from our f leet left a critical hole that needed to be filled quickly. This is an excellent time to brag on my wife for a minute. She is so amazing and bore the brunt of the inconvenience the repair work on Dolores generated. She has explored and used almost every alternative transportation form available in Tulsa: carpool, carpool, Tulsa buses, driving early/late to drop off/pick me up, and carpool. We used a rental car once or twic e, but prayed for God to provide because that was expensive in a hurry. God provided. The physician I am rotating with loaned us his car for several days (which is unheard of). Several friends offered to loan us their cars for a brief time (which was unexpected). We were so well taken care of.
We began to seriously scour the interne t for a dependable used car and pray for God to open the right doors for us. Here are the websites we used and our post-purchase analysis of them (based loosely on a meat scale since meat is a universal language)
- Consumer Reports – well done, unbiased reviews of used car reliability for the past ten years or so. A subscription is req uired, but the $5.96 for a month was worth it to get trustworthy information on car makes, models and years.
- eBay Motors – medium rare, clean site but the purchase interface still makes me nervous (thousands of dollars on eBay? This MK's a little leery)
- Craigslist – medium, difficult to wade through the chaotic listings, but the greatest potential for a good deal – chec k it daily!
- Autotrader – medium well, has good price range and excellent search engine. Ultimately led to the discovery of the car we purchased.
- Vehix – medium rare, more expensive
After spending hours and hours rese arching and searching and reresearching, we had it figured out. We were going to buy either a Honda Accord or a Toyota Camry. I know, neither of those choices is very fun, but our first priority was to get a vehicle that would last until we go overseas (4-5 years). We calculated that we drive approximately 20,000 miles per year so we needed a low mileage car that we could safely put 100,000 miles on. As far as personal taste, I wanted a manual (for the authentic third-world feel) and Melissa wante d one of those auxiliary audio ports that plugs iPods straight into the sound system (we have used the fuzzy-sounding radio tuners for years). God had a few tricks up his sleeve. After several unexpected twists just in time (neither early nor late, as God is wont to do), we drove 1.5hr to purchase a 2007 Hyundai Elantra with 44,000 miles for $2,500 off the asking price! It was exactly what we could afford, and a much younger piece of car than we ever expected. Thank you, Lord! The car is a manual and it has an aux audio input… naturally. That is so typical of God. We are very happy with the car and so excited at how God has taken care of us.
Our current fleet:
If you would like to help us name the newest fleetling, please do! We will be scouring the comments for awesome names to consider. Naturally we will let you know what we ultimately decide. If you need some inspiration, here is a link to some photos on facebook.
