Pray, work, believe
When I started our car that was not coded on Thursdays, the check battery light turned on. I was puzzled at first, so I turned off the engine. When I turned the engine back on, the check battery light did not turn on. Thinking that it was just a glitch, my wife, our daughter and I proceeded to travel to Makati via the Skyway from Quezon City.
But my mind was already preoccupied as our broadband service was spotty that day and I had an important virtual meeting the next day. And although the broadband provider scheduled a repairman to visit our home in the morning, he still had not arrived by the time we had to leave for Makati.
We were probably just a kilometer away from our destination when the gauges started to go crazy! Warning lights were flashing, and the temperature and gas gauges were dead. The horn was also weak.
At that same time, the broadband repairman called. I asked my wife to take the call. The guy was talking about a lot of geeky stuff, which my wife referred to me. But I had to tell her that I was busy with getting us to our destination before the car died on us and that she should just handle the matter herself.
With God’s blessing, we were able to make it to the parking lot. Visibly shaken, I started to assess the damage. I concluded that it must be a battery issue because the battery was already one year old. Fortunately, the battery was still within warranty, and I relaxed knowing that I would not have to spend a single centavo to get the car running again.
I called the battery seller to send their mechanic and asked my wife to take care of the matter while I was doing my free client talk. Our daughter stayed with me.
So, I proceeded to give my talk “Selling to the High Net Worth and Newly Affluent” with a pitch for our PFA Masterclass training program. Just after my talk, my wife, who was already with the mechanics, texted and said that it was not a battery problem but a dead alternator issue. The car, after, all had already traveled nearly 100,000 kilometers and it was time to have the alternator replaced. My heart sank!
The cost of the replacement surplus alternator was P9,300. We also spent over P500 on tolls. And we only got a few thousand pesos on the sale of our book. Moreover, it looked like the attendees were not going to enroll in our Masterclass. To make matters more stressful, in my rush to get back to the car to talk to the mechanics, I accidentally left one of my bags at the venue.
I just said to my wife and daughter that God is still taking care of us because the sale of the books at least cushioned somewhat the impact of the cost. Plus, our daughter was able to retrieve my bag without any of the contents missing. My wife replied that it was good that I saw it that way.
Also, I was amazed at the resilient, can-do attitude of the mechanic who literally single-handedly pulled the original alternator out and replaced it with the surplus one. You see, the mechanic did not have a right arm! He was jolly all throughout the job and even teased his junior partner to lend him the latter’s right hand to speed up their work, which actually took less than two hours. This one-armed guy is truly to be emulated.
About two kilometers away from home, my phone rang. It was our client. I asked my wife to take the call as I was driving. She put the call on speaker. Our client said he had good news! Nine of his people decided to enroll in our Masterclass! Just one enrollee would have been more than enough to cover the costs for the day. We were even told that a longtime successful trainer, who was the speaker at the meeting after me, was endorsing us. We did not get to hear him speak as we needed to attend to the car right after my talk.
You could just imagine the burst of cheer and jubilation in the car as we were hearing the news. And all we could say was thank you, Lord.
This is yet again proof that with any challenge in life, we should just pray hard, work hard and let faith take us home. He even sends LOUD hints to keep the faith, just like the one-armed mechanic.
Happy Easter!
P.S. When we got home, we found that our broadband connection was still spotty. But we were not about to let this matter ruin our great mood. I just contacted the repairman who promised to replace the Wi-Fi router ASAP.
