Nehemiah
So buying a truck in Colombia is just a little bit
stressful, when I say a little bit I mean loosing sleep, crying a little bit
stressful. You have to be so
careful because people change the kilometers so they are lower then they
actually are, people like to cheat you.
When we went to look at trucks I wasn’t allowed to talk so people didn’t
hear my accent. Just little things
like that. Oh and transferring the
money from Canada to here was also a little stressful, which involved tears and
me telling the manager at the bank that it was unacceptable to not have a
working scanner. And all the
little steps that are involved to get the truck in your name and I was a little
worried that they were going to take my money and run. Once you find a truck that you’re a
little bit interested in you have to take it to a mechanic just to make sure
it’s in good shape. I am however
thankful for a good and honest mechanic (his name is Jorge for future
reference). At this point I was
only looking at Toyota’s. And here
starts the story of Nehemiah.
First of all some of you probably know that the verse for
Camp Gozo is “for the joy of the Lord is your strength” which is found in
Nehemiah, and one day I was riding my bike to school, praying about a truck and
I am pretty sure I gasped out loud.
I said (probably out loud to) that when we get a truck its name is going
to be Nehemiah (we have a habit of naming out vehicles in our family). So I wrote in my day planner to buy a
truck on June 11th (this was done in faith as we weren’t even close
to having all the money that we needed), but as camp was going to start on June
16th, we needed the truck for camp.
So I went to see truck #1 on June 4th, it looked
good, didn’t get a great feeling about the guy, but ignored it. A friend of mine (Claudia) who as been
my number 1 side kick since day one of Camp Gozo was praying that the truck was
from Bogota and that it was only one owner (it can be a little complicated if
you buy a truck with plates from a different town, I don’t really know why, but
that’s what everybody said. And
that the seller was the only owner (just so you know more history of the truck
and it’s less risky that some shady business when down). So this truck was neither of these
things and it was about $4000 more then we had. Thinking that I could borrow some from my parents (they said
yes but just to wait and see what the mechanic had to say). So we take it to the mechanic on June 6th
and I was on my way to the shop (a little bit late) and the guy with the truck
had already been there and gone.
While I was a few block away Jorge (the mechanic) called me and said
that the truck didn’t pass. He
didn’t think that the motor was original, he thinks the guy lowered the km and
the truck was used pretty hard and on top of all of that the guy tried to pay
Jorge off so he would help him sell the truck to me. Did I mention that I was so thankful for an honest
mechanic? Jorge said to me that
you need a lot of patience while buying a truck.
Went to see truck number two that same day. Every one seemed really nice, but again
the plates weren’t from Bogota and it wasn’t the only owner. But the truck was nice and the people
where nice and this was only $2500 more then we had. We had everything set up to go to the mechanic on Tuesday
the 9th of June. The
plan was for Claudia and I to go to the guys house and go see Jorge with
them. Claudia and I had a hard
time getting a taxi, we had a hard time getting a bus and then we got
lost. The guy then called us and
said that he was only going to wait five more minutes because he has a lot of
things to do today. Anyways so we
get it to Jorge, said that it was in much better condition then the other one
but the back tires needed changing as they weren’t the same as the front and he
thought that they were asking to much money and to be patient. The guys didn’t like what they had to
say so all the ride back to their house the talked so bad about Jorge, which
didn’t sit well with me.
So that same afternoon we went to see truck number 3. Truck number 3 was in the worst state (it
was leaking oil for starters) but for the amount of money that I had and that I
could put the money that my parents were going to lend my into repairs. The plates weren’t from Bogota and the
guy wasn’t the original owner. The
guys didn’t really want to take it to the mechanic; he wanted Jorge to come to
his house. We finally convinced
him to take it, but he didn’t have a license, but was going to let me drive
it. Now this guy lived on the
opposite end of the city, so we would have had to take it all the way to Jorge
and all the way back. He went up
to get is coat but then realized that he had pico y placa (which is there are
certain days of the week, depending on the last number of your license plate,
that you can’t drive during rush hour cause there are so many cars and traffic
in Bogota). So then the plan
became to go back early the next day and take it. When we got home (Claudia stayed at my house a couple of
nights as she lives far away and we were so busy running around) we kind of
decided that it wasn’t worth it, that because of the state of the truck we
probably weren’t going to buy it anyways and to go to all that trouble.
By this point I had given up hope and was starting to thing
of plan B to get all the camp stuff out to camp. I was positive we weren’t going to have a truck before
camp. Claudia wanted to set up
another appointment in the morning and I told her, there are no more trucks,
there isn’t one left for us to see, not even one. The only trucks that were left were about $10,000 more than
we had. (My parents love me but
$10,000 is a lot of money). So I
had given up hope.
I was hanging up the clothes that I just washed when Jorge
calls me and tells me that he has a truck for me. A 2007 Mazda (told him that I didn’t hear good things about
Mazda trucks) but he told me they got a bad name and that they fixed the
problem and it was a good strong truck and that they use them in the oil fields
here. I called Steve (our
director) to see what he thought, he told me that he heard the same things
about Mazda’s but trusts Jorge’s opinion completely and if he says it’s a good
truck then it’s a goo truck. The
plates were from Bogota, but he wasn’t the only owner. But Claudia and I thought what is the
harm of looking and it does save the step of going to see a truck and then
taking it to Jorge, as this truck already has his seal of approval. And that he was only asking $500
dollars more than we had but sure that we could get him down to what we
actually had. So we went to see it
and the first thing that the owner said was that he saw this truck grow
up. (It was a friend of his and it
worked with the truck from day one, his friend sold it to him not to long ago
and he hasn’t left his shop since that day). He didn’t have plans on selling it(so it wasn’t online or
anything) but another guy came into his shop, the truck had a couple scrapes on
it and he told Marco (the owner) that if he fixes those scrapes he would think
of buying it. This truck had only
been used in Bogota to take parts from shop to shop, so it wasn’t used and
abused in the country like the other trucks we have seen. Just over 100000 km’s, new tires, new
oil change, new paint job and because it was used for machinists the seats were
all torn up but he was changing those and putting new material on them. And we made a deal and we got it for
$500 LESS then we had saved up.
Marco (the owner) such a nice man.
We went and did all the paper work that day (June 10th), paid
him and at the end of the day the truck was in my name. The plan was to pick it up
yesterday but the truck had pico y placa so we are going to pick it up today. I called him yesterday, just to make
sure that it would be ready, because sometimes they say things will be ready
and they aren’t. His response to
me was “we made a deal, of course it’s going to be ready”. So that’s the story of Nehemiah. I am so thankful, it’s such an answer
to prayer and other then being a little terrified to drive in Bogota (and
having to get used to driving a big truck, I have 100% peace that this is the
truck that God wanted for camp Gozo.
Speaking of Camp Gozo it does start on Tuesday so please
keep us in your prayers. Please
pray for safety (especially with me driving) and that hearts and lives are
changed. And again if you want to sponsor
a kid to go to camp please visit this website https://msccanada.org/give-now.html
and under projects and funds click Camp Gozo. Thank you all again for all your prayers and support and
words of encouragement. I still have
a lot do but I am surprisingly not stressed out and I am sleeping, last year,
the week before camp I hardly slept, so even sleeping is an answer to
prayer.
Love you guys
Ingie
Comments