Estimated reading time: 5 minute(s)
OK, so … cool story, had to blog.
We came home from our glorious and wonderful vacation (it was perty neat, actually) and found that at pile of dishes had quickly made their presence known on our kitchen counter. Now, on vacation, the unit that we stayed in had a nice full kitchen… with a dishwasher. We rather enjoyed that dishwasher… Well, we had stayed in places with dishwashers before… but something clicked this time. When I saw our dishes at home, I thought, “WHAT are we doing… this is such a WASTE of time… we do NOT need to be washing dishes!?!?” So… I said to Jen… we’re getting a dishwasher. We really need to.
So, we don’t have any money (and never really have) so we are good at finding the bargain basement prices on things in pretty good shape. We began the search. Found some $50-$100 dishwashers (from here on referred to as “DW”) on eBay… not bad. Then looked in online classifieds… no luck. We were heading to Syracuse to pick up our trailer (long story… perhaps will post later) and thought to check thrift stores out there…
Viola! (that’s French for something…) They had one!!! 🙂 $15!!!! They said it worked when they got it and should be fine! BUT, they close at 5pm. It was 4:15… 1 hour drive… couldn’t do it.
Not to worry, we know a very helpful guy with a truck named Joe. I called Joe up, asked if he could pick it up for us, he said no problem. I told him we had not seen it, so if it’s a piece of junk, don’t do it.
Well, we get the call from Joe when we are about half way there that this DW is a piece of junk. 🙂 BUT, he said he had calls in to about 8 people to see if someone in their church had an extra DW sitting in the garage or something… he said to call when we get there and see if anything has come up.
Thanks Joe! Awesome!
Well, we get to the church, hook up our trailer, and I am about to call Joe when… my phone rings….
“Hello?”
“Hi Greg, it’s Joe”
“Hey Joe, I was just gonna call you!”
“Well, here’s what I’ve got… there’s a guy at Home Depot right now, he’s negotiating a price on a scratch and dent deal… says it’s a $600 DW that they are willing to give him for $300… HE is willing to chip in $150 if you can do the other $150? Is that even in your price range?”
I’m shocked. Stunned. Who would do that for us??! They don’t even know us?
“Uhhh… well… honestly, we are in the $30-50 price range… I’ll have to talk to Jen and see if we can do it. We’ll call you right back.”
“Cool. Talk to you later”
“Bye.”
So… we talk… and are amazed at the generosity of this guy we don’t even know… willing to plop down $150 for a DW for us. Wow. BUT, we know we can not do $150 at this time… so… we called Joe back…
“Joe?”
“Hey Greg.”
“Uhhh…. dude… that’s so cool… but, we really can’t do it. Please tell him THANK YOU for us. That’s very cool.”
“He is a very cool guy. And, I know… I am in the same boat. (Financially) I thought that might be a bit much. Sorry… that’s all I could come up with.”
“Joe, that is awesome! Thanks for all your help!!”
“Your most welcome.”
“Cool… well, we’ll talk to you later! Thanks again!”
“Bye!”
AND… that was it. We packed up the trailer. Started to head out to grab some food before we went home. And about 10 minutes later… we got another call.
“Hello?”
“Hey, it’s Joe.”
“Hi Joe! What’s up?”
“Well… where are you?”
“We’re still in Syracuse… just heading out to get a little dinner before we head home… why, what’s up?”
“Well… could I inconvenience you?”
“Sure… I think? What’s up?”
“Could you stick around for maybe an hour or so?”
“Uh… yeah? Whaddya got?”
“Well… I have a brand new DW for you from Home Depot.”
Silence
“What?”
“He just said, ‘Don’t ask.’ So, I didn’t ask… he can get it to the church by 7:00pm… if you can stick around that long…”
AHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WHOOHOOOOOHOOOOOOOOOOOHOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!
“Yeah, that would be great.” 🙂
“Cool… I’ll see ya at the church at 7pm.”
“Alrighty… see ya!”
=================
Now, what just happened? We were going to settle for a piece of junk in the basement of a thrift store for $15 and instead… God provided a BRAND NEW AWESOME DW for FREE from a guy we don’t even know?!??!??!??!?!??!?!??!?!? WHAT is that all about?!??!
So, the guy (Garth) shows up… smiling… load the DW in our Van and tells us a cool story of how this was totally God working in his wife’s heart to want to do this for us. And Joe tells us a story just before that of how this evening was God working in his life — teaching him some things… and we got to see God providing for us through his people… for FREE… my goodness. What an awesome evening.
Well, we still need to install it… but I dare say every time we look at it, we will be reminded of the bigness and goodness and amazingness of our God.
Hope you are too.