On Sunday, Philip preached in Natchez, Mississippi - he did an excellent job, I might add. I learned a lot from his sermon. On the drive there, we took the Natchez Trace. I was eye-ing places we might stop to eat lunch on the way home; the Trace is such a beautiful drive.
However, just before arriving at the church, we hit a(n already dead) armadillo. I heard a thud under our car as we drove over the armadillo and not too soon after I saw what looked like dust flying behind our car. Now, we didn't have very good directions and my attention was on getting us down the correct rural Mississippi road. After one wrong turn, and some piecemeal directions from a local, we finally found the church. With a wheelchair and stroller, I think we challenged the accessibility of that church to boot.
After the service, we were the last ones to get out of the parking lot. I had cranked the car to start cooling it off while Carolyn, one of the church members, took a picture of me and Anastasia. We weren't even to the road before the over-heat indicator light reminded me of that armadillo. Some how, I was very calm. I reversed us back underneath a tree and cut the engine off. We opened the doors and thankfully there was a nice breeze. Anastasia was even wonderfully content in her car seat. Without going into the details, which the Lord was very gracious to arrange like he did, we ended up at Carolyn's house.
James and Carolyn Schuchs were unbelievably kind. James had already come back up to the church to help us, and Philip and I were eating lunch while James looked at our car. Our mini-van is wheelchair accessible and very, very low to the ground. James and his son got our car lifted as much as possible; enough so to know that it wasn't a quick fix.
My sweet Daddy drove all the way from Inverness to Natchez to pick us up. I think the fact that he was going to get to see Anastasia didn't hurt! In the meantime, we hung out at James and Carolyn's. They both have deep roots in Natchez and we enjoyed hearing more about them.
So, our nice picnic lunch on the Trace never happened, but Philip and I experienced Southern hospitality at its finest...and I won't every again take an armadillo in the middle of the road so lightly.
