Guess What We're Driving?

We went camping a couple weeks ago and barely fit all our stuff.  We came home knowing we would really be needing a full-size van.  (We were chillin' in a 7-passenger minivan.) No more living the mini-life for us!  William was set on finding and buying one before our big trip east for Christmas.  Cool.  We had a few months to find exactly what we needed.

The Lord worked it much sooner than we anticipated!

What we were looking for was simple.  A good price and good mileage.  That's it.  We are no-frills kinda-peeps so the actual look of the van wasn't a big deal.  (Note: there was one red abd white stripe 1977 van on sale for $1000 that I REALLY didn't want to have to drive.  I do struggle with humility still!)  We had a little disagreement on the size of the van.  I was hoping for a 12 (or special-made) 13-passenger van.  William was set on a 15-passenger.  I was a bit reluctant seeing how we'd only be a family of 8.  But, he was certain and I trusted his conviction that we needed the extra space in the back.

The end of the story is we are now the thankful and utterly amazed owners of a REALLY BIG WHITE 15-PASSENGER VAN (aka truck).

Me driving the van to church after almost crying
trying to back it out of the gate and onto the street!

But that's not it!  Can I tell you how incredibly overwhelmed we are by how kind God has been to us?  We started looking on Monday. Craigslist is our style and only from a private owner.  (William refuses to buy from a dealer.)  We found the van on Thursday morning, contacted the owner and set up for William to check it out the next morning before work.  William had a good feeling about this.  Kinda like he did with the Prism (which is still riding sweet for us!).  He came home and we all piled into the minivan to drive to buy this big beast.

The "new van" as the kids call it, is a 2002 Ford 350 XLT.  It was used by a daycare that went out of business (meaning it had regular 6 month checks) and only had 46K miles!  It's truly newer and younger than our other cars!!!!  Is that not incredible?!

And to show you how the Lord continued to bless us and provide, we sold our minivan the next day in less than 24 hours simply by being parked outside our home (like the Jetta!).  When all the numbers are said and done, we really only paid $4200 cash for our sweet, new ride!

Now, if you would all pray that I would learn how to park it parallel to our garage, that would be very kind!