Answered Prayers

The kids are off school for Easter break. We decided to take a family trip to Utah. It has probably been a year since we brought all of the kids down with us and they were all itching to make the voyage to see their cousins.

As usual, it has been a jam-packed holiday so far. I thought that before I forget the details or run out of free time, that I should do a quick update. (I'll try to add some pictures after we return home.)

I should have known that it was going to be a crazy drive on Thursday (April 9), when Wayne called and told me that he had a patient in labour and he was heading down after work to break her water. We had planned on leaving as soon as he got home from work and drive part of the way to Utah. He was obviously late getting home and then we rushed around to get the topper on the van, the bags and kids loaded up and on the road. Just as we were loading everything in the van, the hospital called saying his patient was ready to push. Wayne had arranged to have another doctor cover him for the week and told the maternity ward that they needed to call him as we were ready to head out of town.

For the most part, the drive through Montana was uneventful, as usual...until.... It was already dark; the sun had set and the full moon was clouded over. We were just north of Helena, approaching a small incline on the I-15. I noticed some hazard lights of a vehicle blinking off in the right shoulder of the road. Then it looked like the vehicle was merging back into the regular lanes of the freeway. Before we knew it, the blinking hazard lights were gone! Where did they go? Where was that car? Then in a split second, it appeared. Dark, in the shadows, silhouettes of people standing NEXT to the car and it was PERPENDICULAR across both lanes of traffic!!! We were only a very short distance from it, travelling 125 km/h (80 mi/h) when Wayne made the split second decision and swerved to the right. Miraculously, we did not hit the car that was stalled in the middle of the interstate, in the dark and miraculously, we did not loose control and flip our van into the ditch! We cannot deny that we were being watched over.

Spooked, we were left to wonder what had just happened. We reversed a bit down the hill to make sure no other cars hit them. I'm sure any cars behind us saw us swerve wildly and slowed down. We did see the stalled car being pushed back into the shoulder of the road.

So what happened? This is my theory...the car experienced some sort of problem. They pulled into the shoulder and put on their hazard lights. They must have lost all power and started rolling back down the hill. The steering wheel must of froze up so that instead of rolling toward the guard rail along the ditch on the right, it rolled back into the lanes of traffic. The passengers of the car obviously saw us coming and must have tried to get their car out of the way.

We are so incredibly blessed (and lucky) that we didn't broadside that car or that we didn't roll our van. There surely would've been a fatality or more if we hadn't been watched over and if our prayers of a safe trip weren't heard and answered. Then today, I came to find out that the boys of our good friends, the Madsens, prayed every night for the last few nights that we would arrive safe and wouldn't get in a crash! Thank you everyone for all of your prayers of safe travel!