Ok, so last week we set out on a typical Saturday morning... headed to Windsor Christian Church in Windsor, IL. The stuff you hear about from every band that's ever hit the road was about to become our reality... a seemingly harmless blown tire on our trailer started it all...
Come to find out that 12:30pm on a Saturday afternoon is absolutely unheardof in terms of blowing tires--at least according to the myriad of tire shops we tried to call to no avail. We figured out that we were just shy of Greenville on I-70 and were at least able to press on (albeit slowly) because the tire we blew had a brother behind him that was able to bear the load alone for a while.
Armed with the drummer's iPhone and my internet card and laptop, we located, called and /or visited several closed tire shops until finally pressing on again (albeit slowly) toward Vandalia, IL. 10 minutes in the back parking lot of a Wal-Mart was all it took to figure out that they don't even carry trailer tires... but they pointed us toward the consumer vastness that is Rural King ...
The tire--the only one Rural King had--was an astonishing $103 and also put us in quite the pickle in terms of the likelihood we would even receive the blessing of a sound check. We figured out (ok, I didn't figure anything out, the guy installing our new tire figured out) that it was a dry-rotted valve stem that was likely the culprit. After inspecting the others, we had the young man replace another that seemed headed in the same direction. After spending an hour and a half and over a hundred bucks on the problem, we had a brilliant idea:
The story has a crazy happy ending... the worship that night, while virtually void of a sound check, was very special... we arrived safely and worshiped passionately with the warm, friendly folks who had come out to Windsor Christian Church. Immediately after the set, a couple of kids from a youth group who had come to see the show asked if they could have the tire... one of the moms, without flinching, handed me a check that covered the entire amount of the replaced tire. Two others also came forward, expecting nothing in return, with money toward our tire expense and we ended up signing the other half of the tire and giving it to the youth group at the host church, Windsor Christian.
Crazy cool day, we made it home a whole lot quicker than we made it out there... definitely impressed by the touch we felt from the Body of Christ out in the middle of Central Illinois.
3 comments:
life would be so boring without these stories to tell, and a youth group will never forget you coming. Good work with the video blog. It's so cool to actually see what you're writing about.
Well I hope your trip to Alaska is not so eventful, well at least those types of events! See ya soon!
One of those tires now occupies my youth room!
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