Grandma Knew Her Prayer was Answered

After living two years in Japan I came back to Seattle and visited my friend Richard who worked at my uncle’s Honda dealership in Burien. We decided to take a 400 mile roundtrip weekend motorcycle ride to Lake Chelan in Eastern Washington. Richard decided to go back to Seattle earlier than I wanted, so I rode back by myself the next afternoon. While driving up Stevens Pass the engine froze up and my instincts to pull in the clutch were the only thing that kept me from flying over the handlebars onto the highway.

I was half way up the pass, about a hundred miles from Seattle, wondering what to do when I
remembered a gas station about 5 miles down the mountain. I turned the bike around, put it in neutral and coasted back to the gas station. The engine would have to be rebuilt and so I had to get the bike back to my uncles shop to have it fixed. As I was trying to call my dad on the telephone the engine started on fire. It was parked close to a gas pump and the attendant came running over with  a bucket which we filled with water.  I ran over to the throw the bucket of water onto the fire but being anxious I threw it too hard and most of the water missed the fire.  We finally got the fire put out and I pushed the bike away from the gas pumps.

After sitting down and feeling depressed for a few minutes I tried to call my dad again and he was not at home. I called my grandmother and found out my dad was having Sunday dinner with her. He got on the phone and said, “I told you not to go over there and now you are
going to have to find your own way back and figure out a way to get the motorcycle back too.” There were two problems with this. First, there had been a story on all the TV stations that all the rental trucks and trailers had been rented and the closest ones available were in Idaho. This was just after Boeing had laid off thousands of people and being the primary source of employment around Seattle, people were abandoning their homes and moving out of state.  The second problem was I had reservation on Alaska Airline for Kodiak Alaska and I HAD TO BE THERE in 36 hours.

I tried to hitchhike and nobody stopped for me. When cars came in to get gas I would tell them of my predicament and ask for a ride, but nobody would help me, About an hour after I had talked to my dad two guys in a black Lincoln Continental stopped at the station. I told them what happened and they said, “Hop in and we will give you a ride.” As they drove off I continued to tell them that I had to be in Alaska, etc. and they told me their parents cabin was just a mile down the road and they had a truck with two motocross bikes that their
parents were going to drive back to Seattle later in the afternoon and it would not be a problem to get the truck and take my bike back. We went got the truck, put both motorcycles
in the back and then went back to the gas station and picked up my motorcycle.  When we were about 20 miles outside of Seattle they asked where I lived and then told me where they lived—less than 2 miles apart from each other.

They dropped me off at my dad’s complex and being a nice day I went down to the pool swam a couple laps and fell asleep on a lounging chair. Sometime later I felt somebody taping on my shoulder. It was my dad, who had just gotten home from Sunday dinner. It had been less than two hours since we had talked on the telephone. He was flabbergasted as I told him all the details. When I had finished telling him what happened he told me that when
grandma heard about my situation she had gone into her bedroom for a few minutes and then come back and told my dad that everything would work out fine for me and I would be ok.

I had accepted Christ when I was eight, but at this time was in a rebellious phase. Even then I thought this had been an answer to her prayer. I do not know the odds of the people picking me up who lived so close to where I had to go and that they had another vehicle, a truck a mile down the road with motorcycles that had to be brought back to Seattle—when they were origianlly planning to return home in the Lincoln until I told them my story. I might have even gotten a ride back with somebody else and totally missed this connection, but nobody would give me a ride.  Coincidences?  I don’t think so! When I talked to my grandmother about this later she told me after she had prayed she knew in her spirit that God was answering her prayers. It was answers to prayers like this that were a reminder that I needed to stop my rebellious stage and get right with God again and that God answers prayers. I was blessed to have my grandmother who was such a model of a life of faith for me.