We just received news last night that Ken Steichen, our good friend and Navy Seabee who was shipped off to Iraq, will not be stationed at the Iraq/Kuwait border. His orders were changed yesterday and he will instead be working in Fallujah in the hotbed of the Sunni Triangle. So we are of course quite concerned but are trusting for his safety. He’s finishing up two more weeks of training in California then will ship out to Iraq.
Ken and Mindy and family are good friends of ours, attend our church, and daughter Ashley is my Ben’s good friend. Ken left behind his wife and five children, two of whom are special needs children. He also left behind a lot of unfinished work and issues that he just simply ran out of time to complete. Two years ago, Ken was a self-employed carpenter, had a bad fall that broke his left shoulder and upper arm, and was out of work. After losing their house, Ken was just getting back to work when he was called to duty. The family is struggling to no end financially right now.
His wife, Mindy, drives a 1997 Honda Odessy minivan with 176,000 miles on it and has a very dangerous situation developing. She says that as she is driving down the road, the engine will suddenly shut off and the steering wheel will lock as if she’s turned and removed the ignition key. She says that when it happens, she has a split second to yank on the steering wheel before it locks to get the vehicle headed for the side of the road. Where the vehicle stops is where she sits until she can get it started again. It’s especially dangerous as she constantly is ferrying children around.
I have some good friends at the local Chrylser dealer here in town. Brian, the service manager, also builds houses so he fixes my vehicles and I work with him on building inspections. I explained the whole story to Brian and asked if he had any sort of program to help folks like Ken and Mindy. Even though his dealership is Chrysler and the minivan is a Honda, Brian said he’d take a look at it for her. Mindy just called and said that Brian has offered to replace the ignition switch for $50. She is estatic!
Then, just before Ken left, he bought a 1995 Chevy Corsica with a blown engine for $250 for Ashley to drive when she turns 16 next summer. He was trying to get the engine yanked out before he left but again ran out of time. So Steve (machinehead61) and I are going to work on it this weekend. I called another local car dealer and friend of mine here in town and explained the whole story again. Paul, the dealer, told me that he’d hunt for an engine for me as he could buy them for much less than I could. He does a lot of car repair in town and buys a lot of engines and parts from some reputable parts suppliers. Paul just called back a few minutes ago and said he’d found an engine. The engine has less than 100,000 miles on it and would even be run-tested and guaranteed to work well. Paul’s cost to his supplier would be $450 but he would use this situation to donate $200 to support our troops. Our cost to him would be $250. Incredible!
There are good and decent people in the world. It is so refreshing to be acquainted with such folks and work together to accomplish and conquer the needs of the needy.
Bruce