Update

Let's see, where to begin?

First of all, God is good.  God is SO good, in fact.  Over the last few weeks He's really been blessing us in many, many ways.  First of all, the music director at my church, after hearing about what's been going on here, wrote my family a check for $100, and the church gave us a $100 gift card to the grocery store.  As if this weren't enough, when Stephen and I got home from Creation there was a letter waiting for me from a dear, dear friend I hardly even know with a $75 check inside.  And to you (you know who you are and I don't know if you want others to know), thank you, thank you, thank you...from the very bottom of my heart.  You have no idea how much that meant, and because of you I was able to get the part to fix my car (the reason for needing that part I'll get to in a minute).  And I have to tell you, the letter was more encouraging to me than the check.  I wanted you to know that.  :~D

So, those are the big monetary blessings that've been coming our way.   As far as the state of affairs financially, things haven't gotten any better.  Apparently mom has been calling the different places we owe essentially begging for deadline extensions, which have mostly been granted for the time being.  But that only gives us, at most, a week and a half or so to come up with the same amount as before.  Things have been going wrong left and right, yet because of God's grace we've at least been holding fairly steady, instead of falling even further.  The day after I posted about this situation orginally we found out that my car was leaking brake fluid, and I had to buy $50 in parts so dad could fix it before Stephen and I left for Creation.  Stephen and I pooled what we had, borrowing a little from the shopping money for the trip, and came up with the funds to fix it.  We headed out for Eastern Washington on Tuesday the 20th, with barely enough money to cover gas for the trip (hey, when God says "be there" you don't argue, and He always provides enough).  Things were going well and my car was loving the highway driving after too much city stop-and-go for too long...until Saturday afternoon.  We'd been out "exploring" that afternoon after finding out that the nearest town was completely sold out of ice, and had ended up a good thirty to fifty miles from where we were camping before we found a place with ice...Wal-mart.  We had been planning on picnicing that afternoon, so we had all the food in the car with us.  After a somewhat extended trip through Wal-mart (what can I say, there was air conditioning and it was over 100*F outside), we headed back to the freeway and toward our campground. 

And that's when my car refused to accelerate.  It was holding steady at about 60mph (the speed limit was 70), but every time we hit the smallest incline it would start to choke and lose power.  I thought we were going to break down on the side of the road, in the hot, hot sun, with less than half a gallon of water, 200 miles from home...and then I saw the sign.  "Rest area -- 2 miles".  Stephen and I prayed the car all the way to the rest area, where it stayed until the next morning.  I called my parents and we all tried to figure out how Stephen and I could get back to Creation to work our final shift (otherwise we could've been billed for the whole weekend), and while I was talking Stephen ended up chatting with a family he'd noticed wearing the Creation wristbands.  There were six of them--the parents and four kids--in a station wagon that would seat eight.  They were more than willing to take us back to the campground, but there was no room in the car for any of our food.  Soooo, they said we might be able to tie one of the coolers onto the roof, but they'd left all of their rope back at their campsite.  Stephen and I had none.  Then I remembered the coil of rope I'd seen slightly up the road when I'd walked up to check the milepost to let mom know where my car was.  God provides, eh?  :~D  We grabbed the rope, tied the cooler on top of the car, and made it back to the festival campgrounds safe and sound. 

The only problem was, we either didn't have any "real food" (dinner type stuff) that we could've eaten without cooking (all the pots and pans were in my car still) or some other such thing.  Stephen went walking not long after we'd gotten back, and came wandering back to our campsite not long after holding two chicken burgers and smiling like you wouldn't believe.  I guess some lady had come up to him and told him they were trying to get rid of the extra food they'd cooked that night and they didn't want it to go to waste, asked him if he wanted a chicken burger, and gave him two when he said yes.  :~D  After dinner we did some packing, hit the Newsboys concert, and headed off to our midnight to four-thrity a.m. shift.  My parents showed up in the truck they'd borrowed from my former girl scout troop leader, with the tow dolly they'd borrowed from the neighbors, picked us up, and then we all headed out to get my car.  We were back home before noon, and we all spent most of Sunday sleeping.  The only reason my parents could afford the gas to come and get us was because a friend let them borrow her gas card, and we owe her $100 to cover the bill now, on top of the other stuff.

After we got the car home dad diagnosed it as a bad fuel filter, and thanks to the provision of God through that very, very dear friend, I was able to get the fuel filter and then put gas in my car to make it through the week, with a bit left over to keep the house in groceries.  :~D

So yeah...this is where things are now.  We're still in a major crisis, financially, but God has been providing for us in awesome, awesome ways!  Thank you all so much for your continued prayers...I know that they are more helpful and appreciated than you even begin to realize!

God bless!