Red Dragon Revenge

I should have known I was playing with fire. I should have known that she would exact her revenge. I should have known that proclaiming myself 'victor' would have set her over the edge. When you play with fire, don't be surprised by the burns. The Red Dragon was not happy.

In the dawn of the morning that I blogged my fateful entry 'Taming the Red Dragon', a guttural cry of revenge bellowed through the annals of earth but the echoes would not reach my ears until dusk. We boarded the Red Dragon and traveled 90 minutes down the road to Coquille, Oregon without mishap. We gave her rest in a park, where she was wooed and calmed by the happy cries of children at play. We cleaned her and even gave her more gas on that unhappy day. Yet, under her metal skin, she seethed.

Her rage short circuited the powers of TMobile, rendering my cell phone incapable of use. She had set the stage for her coup. As I traveled the next 17 miles, in the night, through country roads, to Bandon, she would strike and I would be defenseless. Woe to her, she had misjudged the power of the shield of protection covering her foe (me). As dusk settled upon the hamlet of Coquille, I began to draw to a close the story of Bulgaria that I was privileged to share with the Coquille Nazarene Church. As the last words of my story bled into history, the knight of that church, Pastor Scott Dement, brought the bad news. A flattening tire had been spotted. Surely, she (the Red Dragon) had not planned on the eagle eyes of God's servant to spot her revenge prematurely but the knight was vigilant.

Together with other knights of the church, they forged a plan of rescue. Pastor Scott gave me he his faithful steed (a nice, blue van) and sent me into the sunset of Bandon to settle the family for the night in a beach house that the church had kindly reserved for us. Pastor Scott, took the helm of the Red Dragon, promising to right her wrong by mid-day.

Without an eagle-eyed pastor Scott and his willingness to aid a distressed family, imagine the situation as we traveled into the night: no phone in the middle of nowhere in the dark, just me and four little girls and a flat tire. What would I have done?

This is what I love about the Family of God. When one is in trouble, the others surround and protect. Pastor Scott took my van and had it fixed the next morning. Word has it that it was his day off. I am sure that the family had plans which were postponed so that he could fix my tire. Moreover, he and his wife, Sara, loaned me their van without missing a beat, without hesitating for a moment over the inconvenience. How humbled and blessed I felt when I accepted their gracious offer.

I am thankful to the Lord's protection for he did surround me with people who helped in so many ways last week. We are very happy to report that Jay has returned to the family from his short time in Oklahoma. In just a day, we will be headed to California. Yes, we will be driving the Red Dragon but no worries because she likes Jay.