We ran up to Canadian Tire (which is like a Sears, back in it’s hay-day, minus the clothes but with a wider selection of everything else). We needed to grab some new winter boots for the kids and snow pants for me and Allen (thanks, Boxing Day sale!). And after successfully finding what we needed, we returned to the Jeep… only to find that it wouldn’t start.

At all.

A Canadian Tire employee checked our battery, and it was still at 100%. So that‘s not the problem… But the store’s automotive section was closed because of the holiday, so we had no option but to leave the Jeep there until they could look at it.

Which was fine. We don’t have anywhere to go.

Except we also didn’t have a way to get home. And just about everyone we know in Sherbrooke is gone for Christmas break. So finally, we called one of our French teachers and asked her if she could help – and 30 minutes later, Mariette arrived, loaded up our car seats, kids, and me, and drove us home. Then she went back to get Allen and all of our purchases.

Yesterday, we called Canadian Tire to ask when we could get the Jeep in for an appointment and the earliest they have is Wednesday morning. So there you go. We’ll drop the key off tomorrow, they’ll check it out on Wednesday, and hopefully, we’ll have it back in working order ASAP.

So please pray with us that the fix will be quick, easy, and affordable!

We can see God’s grace in this. Thirty seconds of “What are we going to do?!” quickly turned into gratitude. We’re so thankful that the breakdown happened while we were already at a car repair shop. We’re thankful for Mariette dropping everything to come and help us, taking at least an hour and a half out of her day to ferry us back and forth. We’re thankful that we were able to wait for Mariette inside of a warm store. We’re thankful that we didn’t need to go grocery shopping or run any other errands.