Travels, troubles and trust

Tom took off this morning for St. Paul with a truckload of rocks for Helen and Jay's garden. Tomorrow he and Helen fly to New Mexico where they will meet up with Jay. Tom and Helen's older son, Peter, will be graduating from St. John's College on Saturday. Tom expects to be back late Monday night. The cats and I are holding down the fort, with the cats a bit agitated as always when Tom goes away.

I learned today that one of the victims of a recent brutal robbery in Baraboo is the 21-year-old grandson of friends of ours. He was in a horrible automobile accident some years ago, and Nancy and Gene are convinced it was only the combined prayers of the family that pulled him through, although he suffered some brain damage. Apparently he had become involved in what Nancy called "an addictive life" and was in an apartment with two other people when a drug-related attack took place. He was badly beaten and they are still uncertain how he will do now.

After talking with them, I went by the library in Reedsburg, and a woman, her daughter and grandchildren were stuck with car trouble in the parking lot. I offered to give them a ride, so the grandmother took the two children -- one an infant and the other about three -- and went to the apartment they all share to contact friends and see about getting someone to look at the car. They had just spent $1,000 on repairs to the rusty-looking Subaru, and she was afraid the problem was going to be the transmission. She and her daughter live together and are raising the kids by themselves, she has been unable to find work and her daughter just found a job two weeks ago. Without the car, she has no way to get to work, because there is no public transportation, of course. She assured me that she trusted God would help them somehow.

I was going to complain that I had to pay $3.799 for gas, but it does seem pretty small compared to what others have to deal with.