I would like to give the Lord praise for a special answer to prayer. As I made an all-day trip back from the islands by myself to show up and surprise my wife for her birthday, I ran into a few complications along the way. I was calling out to the Lord for His help in my trouble, and He was with me…
I really surprised her good, hehe! Fun! She really thought I was going to miss her birthday! However, it was a major effort to get back, to say the least. I won’t go into the whole story, but it was definitely a special answer to my prayers to make it back safely.
Low on Fuel
At the end of the trip, I poured all the pesos I could scrounge up that I had with me into the fuel tank. I had thought that I had enough money, along with a little buffer, to make the trip when I started out. However, after buying some fish and pineapple gifts for my wife along the way, my trip budget was more than stretched.
When I needed to make a long detour in Manila because of an unexpected road construction problem, it didn’t seem to help any with fuel conservation needs, and I knew I was in trouble. I turned the air-conditioner off part of the way to try to help stretch the fuel, and even prayed that the Lord would multiply the fuel to help me make it home without needing to make an emergency call for help, or parked along the road somewhere because I had ran out of diesel.
My empty tank fuel light came on around an hour or so away from home. Not wanting to run out, I stopped at a service station and purchased p100 of diesel (approx 2 liters), but that didn’t get me much farther, and I needed to do that again a little farther down the road. When I needed to stop again (for the 3rd time) for fuel, I ended up putting every peso that I had with me (p143) into the fuel tank, knowing that when I got to the toll gate, I would have nothing left to pay them.
When I arrived at the toll booth, I told them, “Blessed are the merciful. I’m on my way back from a mission trip, and I do not have enough money to pay my toll ticket.” I asked them if I could just come back to pay for it the next day. They graciously allowed me to do that, so I went back to pay for my toll ticket (p310) the following day.
My next problem was to make it home, because I did not have the ability to buy any more fuel. I did actually make it (around 10:30 p.m), but my empty fuel tank light was on most of the way from the toll gate. (The toll gate is around 15-20 minutes or so away from home.) Whew, that was a close one out in the dark by myself with a diesel engine that doesn’t like to run out of fuel!
When I went to buy diesel the following day, I filled the tank up. It took 49.73 liters to fill up the tank. The station attendant thought that my fuel tank only actually holds 50 liters, (I’ll have to check that out). If that is so, that means that I was almost on the last drops and fumes by the time I finally pulled up to our house.
I made it home safely and without dreadful trouble, however it happened! PTL! God is good!
