My car's name is Cory. I like to call him Little Cory. You may have heard about his recent incident. If not, here is one survivor's story of the epic journey to fall conference ....
This is the epic story of our trip to get to Fall Conference.
My phone rings at 5pm on Friday. Ben has arrived and they are waiting for me in the car outside my dorm. So I pick up all of my stuff, lock the door, and head outside where…awesome, Ben and Drew have the hood up on Stephanie Macek’s car (we are borrowing it for the weekend). So I go over and Joel informs me that the battery just died when they parked. What to do? Never fear; it just so happened that an off duty UPS employees was pulling out of the parking lot and just so happened to have jumper cables in his car.
So say a little pray to thank God for giving us our wheels back and hit the road. But not for long, we got as far as the corner of Overlook and Cedar before we had to stop at a red light. This apparently was not a good thing for Stephanie Macek’s car. It died again. So the picture thus-far is our car sitting at the stoplight, dead for a second time. Ben is getting soaked because it is raining and the window (of course power windows) is down. We are already leaving about 45 minutes later then our scheduled departure time, but that is kinda how things go in IV. Make a phone call to campus security, and have them come and try to jump our car.
After about a half an hour campus security comes and tries to jump the car a half dozen times with a dinky little portable unit…naturally it doesn’t work. So they leave and tell us that our alternator or whatnot is probably done for. After a bit we get Ben’s roommate to come by and try to jump the car; to no avail yet again. So we give up the car for dead and our problem is that we need to get it off the road. By this time we have secured alternate rides for 3 out of 4 of us from Kononia. So we put the car in neutral (NOT REVERSE) and push it up the hill, turn it around, and manage to get it parallel parked, thanks to some awesome steering my Matt (Ben’s roomie).
Right, so Joel leaves with some Kononia people and the current plan is to have Drew and myself leave in the other car, while Ben forges for a ride and takes care of the car. Well at least we don’t have to worry about someone stealing it!
Phone Call!!!! Guess what? The second car from Kononia is sitting in the turnaround in Carlton and it not only has a flat tire, but the spare tire is also flat. Oh brother, so we through all of our stuff in my room and try to figure out what to do next. We currently have 6 people who don’t have a way to get to fall conference. This is the point where you realize that you are an actor in a play directed by God and you don’t know the script.
After a while IV staff comes to the rescue with a 6 seater Tourus. Well we are convinced that the 6th seat was only meant for small children, but all the same, it would get us to where we need to go (hopefully). So we go back up to my room to get our stuff out of my room. I put the key in the door to my room and it literally bends in half! Awesome, so I eventually manage to get it back out and get a replacement from the Fribley office, and we are able to get at our stuff again.
So after waiting for the tow truck to arrive for the second car and chowing down on some Jimmy John’s, we are finally on our way. By this time it is around 9:30 at night. I had my pillow out and decided to get some semblance of a nap before we got there. After a while I fall asleep and don’t wake back up until we pull into a gas station somewhere. Apparently we missed the exit. Fortunately it didn’t take us too long to get back on track and we had some fun navigating back country roads in the middle of the night to get to the Heartland Conference Center. THANK GOD!!!! We finally arrive at 12:15 am. Time to check in and get some sleep.
I don’t know about everyone else, but I had a lot of fun on our adventure. On a personal level, I think that God was allowing me to be able to let go of all of the things that were on my mind. By the end of our trip there, I was ready to stop worrying about things and really let Fall Conference happen for me. I had an awesome time experiencing God that weekend and I’ll never forget it! ~ Michael DeLibero
This is the epic story of our trip to get to Fall Conference.
My phone rings at 5pm on Friday. Ben has arrived and they are waiting for me in the car outside my dorm. So I pick up all of my stuff, lock the door, and head outside where…awesome, Ben and Drew have the hood up on Stephanie Macek’s car (we are borrowing it for the weekend). So I go over and Joel informs me that the battery just died when they parked. What to do? Never fear; it just so happened that an off duty UPS employees was pulling out of the parking lot and just so happened to have jumper cables in his car.
So say a little pray to thank God for giving us our wheels back and hit the road. But not for long, we got as far as the corner of Overlook and Cedar before we had to stop at a red light. This apparently was not a good thing for Stephanie Macek’s car. It died again. So the picture thus-far is our car sitting at the stoplight, dead for a second time. Ben is getting soaked because it is raining and the window (of course power windows) is down. We are already leaving about 45 minutes later then our scheduled departure time, but that is kinda how things go in IV. Make a phone call to campus security, and have them come and try to jump our car.
After about a half an hour campus security comes and tries to jump the car a half dozen times with a dinky little portable unit…naturally it doesn’t work. So they leave and tell us that our alternator or whatnot is probably done for. After a bit we get Ben’s roommate to come by and try to jump the car; to no avail yet again. So we give up the car for dead and our problem is that we need to get it off the road. By this time we have secured alternate rides for 3 out of 4 of us from Kononia. So we put the car in neutral (NOT REVERSE) and push it up the hill, turn it around, and manage to get it parallel parked, thanks to some awesome steering my Matt (Ben’s roomie).
Right, so Joel leaves with some Kononia people and the current plan is to have Drew and myself leave in the other car, while Ben forges for a ride and takes care of the car. Well at least we don’t have to worry about someone stealing it!
Phone Call!!!! Guess what? The second car from Kononia is sitting in the turnaround in Carlton and it not only has a flat tire, but the spare tire is also flat. Oh brother, so we through all of our stuff in my room and try to figure out what to do next. We currently have 6 people who don’t have a way to get to fall conference. This is the point where you realize that you are an actor in a play directed by God and you don’t know the script.
After a while IV staff comes to the rescue with a 6 seater Tourus. Well we are convinced that the 6th seat was only meant for small children, but all the same, it would get us to where we need to go (hopefully). So we go back up to my room to get our stuff out of my room. I put the key in the door to my room and it literally bends in half! Awesome, so I eventually manage to get it back out and get a replacement from the Fribley office, and we are able to get at our stuff again.
So after waiting for the tow truck to arrive for the second car and chowing down on some Jimmy John’s, we are finally on our way. By this time it is around 9:30 at night. I had my pillow out and decided to get some semblance of a nap before we got there. After a while I fall asleep and don’t wake back up until we pull into a gas station somewhere. Apparently we missed the exit. Fortunately it didn’t take us too long to get back on track and we had some fun navigating back country roads in the middle of the night to get to the Heartland Conference Center. THANK GOD!!!! We finally arrive at 12:15 am. Time to check in and get some sleep.
I don’t know about everyone else, but I had a lot of fun on our adventure. On a personal level, I think that God was allowing me to be able to let go of all of the things that were on my mind. By the end of our trip there, I was ready to stop worrying about things and really let Fall Conference happen for me. I had an awesome time experiencing God that weekend and I’ll never forget it! ~ Michael DeLibero
God is good =)
I don't think it's a coincidence that over the years the Case chapter often has run into ridiculous technical roadblocks on the way to IV conferences. For Fall Conference in particular a Case car once ran into car trouble AND collided with a deer on the country roads right outside the Heartland Conference Center. But what really takes the cake is the infamous SUV-catching-on-fire-on-the-way-to-CFW incident (from 2004?). Flames and billows of smoke were trailing from the back of the car while it sped down the interstate with the vehicle occupants completely unaware of what was going on. A few good Samaritans gestured for the car to pull over and yelled at the occupants to get out. I wasn't in that car, but I remember looking out the window of my ride and to my surprise seeing smoke billowing from the back of Seth's car and my IV buds running out of the car. Thankfully nothing dramatic happened after that (no explosions, etc), and the flames died down on their own. Apparently the lubricant on the axel was messed up somehow and caught on fire due to the friction. The car was totaled and we were stranded in Michigan, but a kind UMich IV staffworker came to our rescue by providing their car for the conference. We prayed for protection and arrived safely at CFW without further incident, and had a fantastic week.
Lessons: Expect to be targeted for spiritual warfare. IV conferences must be spiritual hot stuff for the enemy to care. The enemy is limited in what he can do. And ultimately, God is in control.
Amen to that Wayne! =D
I remember all those incidences. I wasn't in either of those incidences but yeah, scary but compelling testimonies for IV Fall conference!