I should have gone off to college in the Fall of 1974. I had graduated high school in June and I knew where I was going to school, but I lacked the funds. So, I opted to work six months and then go to school and work while I was there to pay for more college. The months of June through December I worked in a factory and salted some money away. 

The church I attended had a large bus ministry and I was asked to drive a bus on Sunday mornings to pick up kids for church. I was only 18, but I had been driving the farm truck since I was 11, so I guess I was a good fit.

These church buses were not the sleek designs you see now. These were old school buses that were slated for the junk yard. Paint them up and make them look good and put them on the road and your church had a bus ministry. The bus I was assigned was from the 1950s and had seen better days. We had two guys serving on the bus, one was the bus captain and the other was his assistant. My two guys were in junior high. Yes, sir. We were a professional group. Saturday mornings we would drive the bus around the route and the captain and his assistant would run up to houses and remind the kids we would be around in the morning. For some reason the mothers were all for their kids getting on a rickety old bus driven by an 18 year old and being driven 20 or 30 miles away. The church had 10 or 12 such death traps on wheels and we regularly had 400 kids in our junior church. My bus went the longest distance, picking up kids as far as 30 miles away.

I cannot say I enjoyed it. A bus with screaming children was not fun. But I was assured by the associate pastor that I was doing the Lord's work. Still, I was counting down the days until I could leave for school. 

And so it was, the second Sunday of December, I found myself driving down Lakeshore BLVD in Mentor on the Lake trying to navigate through white out conditions. A storm was blowing off Lake Erie and my wipers could not keep up. At that time radar was not what it is now and therefore weather forecasting was not what it is now, and this storm just seemed to pop up out of no where. Still, mommies put their little darlings out by the road and the big red bus picked them up. Lakeshore crossed over State Route 44, and I needed to get off onto Rt. 44 to get back to the church in Perry, Ohio. Now there is a nice, gentle curving off ramp from Lakeshore going down to Rt. 44, but then it was a sharp right turn. The heater in the old bus didn't work, but I was still sweating bullets. No one should have been out in that, much less an old bus loaded with kids and driven by another kid just a few years older. 

I came up to the turn off. Usually, I would slow all the way down, almost to a stop, to make that turn. Mess up and you were going to go over the embankment and pancake into the road below. So, I gently began to brake to keep from sliding. And the brake pedal went to the floor. The brakes had failed. It seemed the bus was picking up speed. I began to down shift and the bus continued to pick up speed. (Just so you know for future use, bald tires do not work well on ice.) I was still s little ways from the embankment, so I turned the wheel hard right, hoping I could sideswipe a tree and stop. (Just so you know for future use, bald tires do not turn well on ice, either.) The bus would not turn. The edge of the embankment was protected by a chicken wire fence and that was not going to stop the bus. With nothing else to do, I straightened the wheels to try and keep the bus from rolling and whispered (I thought I whispered, but they told me later I yelled it) HELP US, JESUS! We went through that chicken wire like it was nothing. We blasted through the snowbank like a snowplow and we hit the bottom of the embankment. However, a snowstorm is a double edged sword. It created the accident, but it also provided a cushioning affect with the deep snow to slow the bus down. We bounced up onto Rt. 44, slid hard right and stopped. We were perfectly in our lane and pointed in the direction we needed to go. The kids were cheering and begging to go do it again. I just slipped the bus into gear and started off. The rest of the way back I slowed, and finally stopped, using the gears.

We got there safely and I let the kids out, all of them still jabbering about Mr. Larry's shortcut. The man who was in charge of all the buses, THE BUS MINISTRY DIRECTOR, came up to me. I told him what had happened and why the bus was dragging about 30 feet of flimsy fence. "HA! You had quite the ride! I knew those brakes were leaking but I was hoping it would be better weather before I fixed it." "Wait! You knew the brakes were bad and you let it go! Look, here are the keys. I am going home. You can drive those kids home in a different bus. I am going to call the county sheriff's office and tell them what happened and if they see that bus number on the road, they need to know it is not safe!" For me to fly off the handle like that was very uncommon. I had a hard time talking to people older than me without blushing, but we could have had a bus load of dead kids. As I walked away, THE BUS MINISTRY DIRECTOR shouted after me, "You are grieving the Holy Spirit, boy." 

Did the Lord save us all that day? Yes, He did. We were innocent in that none of us knew there was a problem. Was the Holy Spirit grieved? Yes, He was. The Lake County Sherriff's Department was out the next day and found problems in all buses but one. Cost the church a large, undisclosed amount in fines and repair costs. 

The point is, never take the Lord for granted. Do not go ahead and do stupid things believing God will bless anyway. I am pretty sure that director didn't consult the before letting a dangerous vehicle out like that. He just assumed that the Lord would provide.

The Lord blesses faithfulness and righteousness and subservience. But the Lord draws the line at stupidity.

Blessings.