About 1,000 miles to travel on bald tyres ('tires' if American or Canadian). Way back in the time during our 2 year missionary course in the USA, having come to the end of that course and both Rita and I graduating, we had to make plans to return to the UK. This is a short account of that experience, and it was quite an experience. The year was 1966.
We had no money and as we were in the USA on student visas neither Rita nor I could work. We were able to stay at the New Tribes Language and Linguistic School in Waukesha, Wisconsin until we actually left for the UK, which was a real blessing. About three months before we were to leave we called in at the local travel agent in Waukesha, the town the school was situated in, to book passage on the Cunard Liner the 'Queen Elisabeth' sailing from New York to Southampton UK. There was room at the time we wanted to travel and we booked passage in 'Tourist Class', which was the cheapest out of the three classes...First, Cabin and Tourist. The guy who owned the business told us that we would need to pay a deposit on the fares once the confirmation came through. As I have said, we had no money so even the paying of the deposit was going to have to be a miracle as well as the paying of the full amount when the time came. Praise God, He provided the deposit and we went to the travel agent to pay it as requested. He gave me the receipt and said that the balance would be due one month before we sailed. "Father, we need another miracle please."
The date came for us to pay the travel agent the balance owed on the tickets to the UK. I had a phone call from the travel agent the day before to remind it was one month before we sailed and he needed the balance. I had to tell him I had no money for the fares. He said that if the fares were not paid the next day the Cunard company would cancel the booking and our deposit would be forfeit. Did we need a miracle... To my relief he said he would phone Cunard in Chicago and see if he could persuade them to give me another week. Praise the Almighty Lord! The next day he phoned to say they had given me one more week, but that was it. How Rita and I praised the Lord.
That week seemed a very short week. The day before the en of the week I phoned the travel agent to say we still did not have the money. To my amazement he said he knew how us folks at the school were training to be missionaries, many over the years had booked passages to mission fields through him. He said he had opened a new office in another town so money for him was a bit tight, otherwise he would have paid the fares for us himself as a gift, nevertheless he would pay the fare for us and we would owe him the money. He said he believed that wherever in world we would be, when we could, we would pay him back. He said to come in the next day and collect the tickets. I went back to our room and told Rita...boy did we rejoice. I'm not sure we cried for joy as well. I feel a bit choked up now just remembering this.
The next morning I went to the college office to share what had happened. There was a letter arrived for me in the post that morning, I opened it and to my double amazement there was a cheque in it for an amount which more than covered the amount we needed for the fares. Rita and I did a double rejoice. I then wrote a cheque for the total amount of the fares, we went to the travel agent and and as we entered he said he had the tickets and confirmed the loan for the money was to be repaid just whenever we could. To his amazement I then said that I could do that right now and gave him the cheque. What a moment that was.
One day, during this time of preparing to leave, I was filling up my twelve year old Buick Special car with gas (petrol) at the local gas station and the guy who was filling up the tank was a guy who I'd talked to in the past and learn't was a school teacher doing a little extra work in the evenings. On this occasion he asked me if I wanted to sell my old Buick, well I said I and my family needed it to travel to New York in a few months to catch a ship to return to the UK. Anyway, next time I saw him he asked if I would trade my Buick for his four year newer Ford Ranch Wagon, just a straight trade. He said the reason was that as my Buick was not rusted out anywhere, although it had a few dents here and there and the bonnet (hood USA) was tied down with a bit of string, he wanted to restore it. I gave some thought to this offer and said I would do the trade. I knew this Ford I got was rusted out a bit along the near side doors but, hey, I was only going to keep it for a couple of months. What I hadn't noticed was that the tyres had hardly any tread on them, in fact they were virtually bald. By the time it came for us to leave Waukesha I still had not been able to buy new tires. "Heavenly Father, what do we do?" The car would have my wife Rita, our little girl Sally, a friend Rosemary, who was returning with us, me and we would be pulling a ten foot long trailer filled with the three 50 galleon drums and all our other baggage.
The next day as I drove our of Waukesha I sensed Father had given me a wonderful gift of faith and I was filled with a amazing awareness of peace that Father would bring us safely through the nearly 900 mile journey to New York.
En-route to New York we called in at our previous New Tribes school in Pennsylvania where a student who came from New York bought the car for $150, put remold tyres on it, and drove us the rest of the way to New York, right on to the dock where the Cunard ship Queen Elizabeth was moored.
All our baggage was unloaded from the trailer. Except for our walk on cases the rest was to go in the ship's hold, this was weighed and we were charge a fee. The guy weighing it said that the fee was $130, I only had what was left of the $150 from the sale of the car, and after petrol for the trip etc some of that had gone so I didn't have $130, he must have noticed the look on my face when he said what the fee was as with a smile on his face he said, "Forget it, we've plenty of room in the hold this trip." A smile came to my face also and a "Praise the Lord" shouted in my mind.
The ship sailed the next day so with the help of a pleasant taxi driver we found a not too expensive hotel room for the night. Next day we enjoyed five days sea voyage to Southampton, England.
Blessings, Eric.
