You Are on the Right Path

We made it to Pennsylvania and to St. Tikhon's Seminary, but I cannot say the trip was without event. The story starts with a heavy rain storm starting up as we passed by Chicago.

The boys and I were in the big moving truck with the car in-tow, with the rest of the family following in the van. We had taken a slight detour to Grand Rapids to visit some old friends from our time in China. When I started the turn into the tight turn of clover-leaf interchange, I almost immediately realized that the front wheels had very little traction.

I was able to catch the very beginning of the guardrail, which grabbed the front of the truck and turned us over on to the driver's side, allowing the box on the back of the truck to dig in and bring us to stop at the top of the embankment, which was decidedly better than careening down the embankment and crashing into the bottom with a few tons of cargo behind us.



The boys and I were completely unharmed. We climbed out into the rain, and before I could even get out, some paramedics, who were transporting some patients across town, were on the scene, though thankfully their services were not needed.

The fiberglass top of the box broke open, pouring our belongings out on to the hill. When the tow truck turned the truck back up on to its wheels, the sides held on to most of our things in, meaning we did not have to pick everything up and reload there on the side of the road.

As it turns out, my wife's and my mom's packing a couple months prior protected the majority of our boxes' contents. So, though almost every box was wet and reformed into a slightly more rounded shape, most held together and kept the contents intact.

The firemen on the scene kindly helped with packing the loose items into a new truck and then a crew of earthly angels materialized at the rental truck location to help move crashed-truck-contents to the new truck.

While I stayed on the scene, the rest of the family was able to go to our friends' house, and it was these friends who gathered some folks to help us reload. Also, my priest back in Oregon had called a couple of churches in the crash area, and a local parishioner in Grand Rapids came to help.

In the end, with a relatively gentle wreck, no injuries, well-packed boxes, the hospitality of friends, and some willing box-carriers, this incident turned out about as good as it possibly could have.

Before I wrap up the story, I have a seemingly unconnected story to bring in. A year or two ago, during homeschool, reading the lives of the saints of the day, the kids had gotten excited about hearing "that those who remembered [St. Barbara] and her sufferings would be preserved from a sudden, unexpected death, and would not depart this life without benefit of the Holy Mysteries of Christ", and in addition, at a different time, read that those who pray for the peaceful repose of St. Nicholas's parents, Theophanes and Nona, will receive his prayers in a similar way. They have faithfully asked for the prayers of those two saints every day since.

We did not even think of that till a couple weeks after arriving at St. Tikhon's, and only then realizing we had some unseen help as well. We are thankful not only to all those in Grand Rapids who gave us their aid, but also the heavenly intercessions of St. Nicholas, the martyr Barbara, and to the Mother of God, who has now pulled us through three close calls on the road through her icon (which is always with us on the dash when we travel).

When we told our story to the abbot of St. Tikhon's Monastery, across the road from the seminary, his simple response was, "That does not surprise me at all. That just means that you are on the right path." Stories of trials and difficulties trying to make it to St. Tikhon's (and to live here) are evidently quite common.

Thanks be to God for his protection and care. We are thankful to all the saints who interceded on our behalf. And we are thankful to those who stepped in to lend a helping hand in the whole process.