Every couple of weeks we have "all-day meeting". So rather than head home after the Lord's Supper, we have a potluck lunch in the meeting hall and then have meetings in the afternoon. There is another small gathering in a town about 45 minutes away, and those folks typically come down and join us for what my family calls "eatin' at the meetin'". Yesterday they hosted the all-day meeting instead, so we headed up there. It's about an hour drive from our house to the other meeting room.

When we first arrived, I realized I'd done a pretty shoddy parking job, so I hopped back into the truck to re-park it. The truck wouldn't start.

So when meeting was over, we gathered around the truck, and some of the more mechanically-included poked, prodded, played with jumper cables, and finally gave up. It looks like we have a bad starter.

We called the roadside assistance number for our insurance company, who told us there wasn't anywhere to take the truck until this morning, so they'd send someone out around 7:00 AM.

So there we were, stranded about an hour from home, with a tow truck coming to pick up our vehicle and take it to a dealership for service the next morning.

A family in the meeting offered us a vehicle to drive and another family drove us out to pick it up. I figured I'd be having to make a 5:30 AM commute this morning to meet the roadside assistance people by my car for 7:00; but a brother in the other town took my car keys and met them instead. By his reckoning, it made more sense for him to travel ten minutes and handle it, rather than for me to travel an hour to handle it. "You should just sleep in," he said.

So yeah, we're annoyed and frustrated. But the kindness and generosity of the people we remember the Lord with has turned this from potentially disastrous to annoying.

By this shall all know that ye are disciples of mine, if ye have love amongst yourselves. (John 13:35, JND)