The Worst Case Scenario

Kick back and relax as I tell you our worst case scenario story. I need to fill you in on some details, so bare with me. Let's rewind back a day to Sunday, November 20th. After church, we head home, fix some food and interestingly enough, Hugh wasn't too hungry, which I found to be weird, but I figured we'd eat a little later. I just snacked on a few pretzels while searching through www.craigslist.com. I am the biggest fan of Craigslist, for one can buy really nice things for the home (or whatever) at such a cheap rate. I was specifically looking for a washer/dryer/fridge on there, b/c we didn't have any of those. We close on our house this Wednesday, and I was trying to be a good steward of looking in advance for a great deal. Well, I found one. Thus, when we should have been in our sweats, relaxing on this cool, Sunday afternoon, Hugh and I headed out the door to scope out this fridge, washer/dryer this lady was selling at a garage sale. We had to go back to our house-to-be to measure the height of the fridge space, pick up a friend's trailor, head to Wachovia Bank to get some money, and then off we go towards Chapel Hill, NC, about 55 minutes away. We were already a little hesitant to drive such a long distance for appliances we had never seen before, but the deal was too good to resist.

Upon arriving at this lady's house, we discover that she is selling some REALLY nice appliances at SUCH a good deal. The problem is, she lived in an apartment, that had a basement that was only accessible if you walked down the steep hill of leaves (outside) and around to the back of the house. Hugh and I were the only ones moving these appliances. We knew we were going to get a MAJOR workout. After we agreed on a price and payed her the money, we then picked up our handtrucks and started down the hill to get the washer and dryer. Here was where the fun began.....

Right before carrying up the dryer, Hugh looked at me strangley and said, "Man, I feel really bad." His lips turned as white as his face and just looked sickly instantly. I thought to myself, "We have to hurry and move this stuff because Hugh is not going to make it much longer." There we were outside in the back, when Hugh had to sit down. Five minutes later he's breathing deep after vomiting five times. "Great, could this not have happened any other time Lord," I thought to myself. Hugh could hardly stand for 2 minutes straight without feeling light headed and weak. This was the last place Hugh wanted to be. I felt so sorry for him. However, we had no other choice but to keep going. The reason we got such a good deal was, because we were going to take everything that day. I thought, "How are we going to do this?" Hugh and I pushed and pushed our way up this hill of leaves(just the two of us), slipping on leaves as we carried the dryer up and pulled the washer up on handtrucks. The sun had gone down by now, and there were no flood lights or street lights. Amazingly enough, we move both washer and dryer up the hill and loaded them onto the truck. What was our next step? The fridge.

The fridge was upstairs(Praise the Lord), but it was such a massive side-by-side fridge that we had to take the doors off. Hugh was too sick to take the doors off, and the lady sho-nuff wasn't going to do it, so with wrench in hand, I began twisting off bolts and unscrewing water lines to the ice maker. It still didn't fit through the door. We had to take the lady's kitchen door off to fit it through, and finally we got it out to the truck with Hugh's help. Hugh, poor thing, had to sit down because he was going to pass out if he did any more work without resting. Eventually, all three appliances were loaded, it was pitch black, and Hugh was trying to tie down all of these to the trailor. He was freezing his butt off by now (fever) and the aches started to set into his muscles. You know the feeling.

The deal was, if we took her fridge today, we had to move a smaller fridge up from the basement. AUGH! How could we move it??? Hugh absolutely was incapable of moving anything else, so the lady and I began to move it up the slippery hill with the handtrucks. There we were, yelling out loud as we were pushing and pulling that thing up the slippery hill in the pitch black dark. We were slipping and falling again and again. This particular time, I was pulling the load. I slipped and fell, and the fridge fell on my legs...but it didn't hurt at all b/c of the handtrucks and it was slow fall. The weight was distributed evenly, but I just couldn't get up, being the fact that I was on a hill and didn't want it rolling down the hill, running over the lady who was holding it on the other end. I yelled for Hugh, and he came and lifted it off of me. So, finally everything was loaded(shew!) and moved to its proper place.

Hugh couldn't drive home, so it was up to me to haul this L-O-A-D home. As I was driving, with darting, wide-eyes trying to make sure everything was in tact and at the speed of an 80-year old granny, we headed down the road. The story doesn't stop there..... I notice that the fridge is all over the place everytime I went over the slightest bump. There was no way we could drive 46 miles home like this. So, we pulled over near UNC campus and tried to figure things out. Hugh was freezing, hurting, and feeling so "achy" by now. Inside the truck felt like a sauna, and he just couldn't stand up for any period of time outside the truck. I had no idea if we were in a good part of town or not. As always, I called my dad to get advice. The problem was, since we took the doors off of the fridge, there was nothing to tie the fridge down from side to side to stabilize it. So, with wrench in hand again, I put one door back on. We strapped that thing down side-to-side which took about 45 minutes for everything. I was praying for protection the whole time, because every person who walked by this parking lot only saw a girl in the trailor putting a door on a fridge. CRAZY!!! We're off again with confidence this time, knowing that we'll make it home without our fridge toppling over onto I-40. Well, it starts sprinkling on the way home. The plot thickens.....(I know this is long, but hang with me.)

We called a friend to meet us at the house to unload since Hugh was unable to move anything, drove all the way out to our house-to-be on Wednesday(it's raining good by now), only to find out that the dresser we just put in the garage the day before....WAS GONE. Someone had taken it. And let me tell you, it was SO ugly(one of my remodeling projects). There was no way we were going to roll the dice with these nice appliances. Since our house is a foreclosure house, an agency called HUD owns it...until Wednesday. Someone from HUD had come out to the house to clean it up and thought the dresser belonged to the previous owners...and guess what? They took it. So basically, anything we left there until Wednesday could be taken from us by HUD. The neighborhood is a great neighborhood, but it's just not officially ours until Wednesday. So.....We had to load it BACK up to the trailor, tie it all BACK down, and sit in the car(it's raining) wondering what to do next. There was no way we could get these things up the tight cornered stairwell up to our apartment. NO POSSIBLE WAY. We called and called around to see if anyone could help. It was 10:30 at night by this time. Hugh was still sick. The problem was....all of our friends lived in apartments as well, since we're all in seminary, except a few couples. At this point we didn't care if it sat in a barn, we just needed a place. We called and called, but to no avail. We were desperate and our only option at this point was to put a tarp over it as it sat under an empty apartment patio in our complex. We had no other choice. Meanwhile, Daisy was at home in her crate about to pee in her pants, because she had been in there since 3:00 that afternoon when we left.

I kept praying and praying that the Lord would make a way where there was no way. Nobody was dying here, but this was urgent and very important. Hundreds of dollars was at stake here. Adam, our friend who was helping us and who was sitting in his car next to us, rolled down his window and told us we could take it to our church (that we are going to join very soon, "North Wake.") WE COULDN'T BELIEVE IT. Adam had called one of the associate pastor's at 10:30 at night, asked him about it, and he said he'd be there a minutes. The generosity of the Lord is soo great. We were in awe. Hugh and I were so grateful that we kept saying "thank you so much" over and over and over to the associate pastor. Praise the Lord!!

Hugh and I discussed how we will never again forget this experience, and one day, when we are in the ministry, we'll jump at the opportunity to help people in the middle of the night, in the rain, and who aren't even members of our church. PRAISE THE LORD!!! We definitely saw ministry at work tonight.

p.s. To top all of that....My cell phone rings this morning. It's my mom. "Hollie, you don't have school today?" I FREAK OUT. With my head being so clouded and still half-way asleep, I muster out, "What time is it?" ...stumbling over my words. Thinking back, I'm sure I sounded sooo funny. ha! It was 7:45 am. School starts at 8:38. You betta believe that I jumped out of bed as if I was on fire!!! I made it to school, my classes went well, and well...today has turned out to be a pretty good day! Shew!!!