Last Monday I left the house early to go hang out with one of the pastors from my class. He is looking at planting a new church and has to look for some land, so I went to drive him around, because his car is not really able to get very far these days...
I took the 50 minute drive out, after having stopped for a couple tacos, and at the end of the highway when I tried to stop- it worked for a few seconds- then I lost brakes! After i let the brake up- it regained some strength- but then the brake would quickly hit the floor with little efficacy.. I decided I was close enough to the church to keep going...
Now to get to the church you need to turn left into a gas station and then drive down the dusty, rutty, shoulder of the road- the wrong direction- for about a block. Halfway down the block you actually have to go out on to the road (going the opposite direction of traffic!!) and then turn left down the back roads. For the most part you don't really need strong brakes because it is so rutted you cannot drive very fast anyway. but at the end of the road, you go down a curvy hill over a train track. Monday they happened to have 2 busses stopped at the end of the road... I decided to forgo the stopping and drive quickly past the busses into the oncoming traffic- which actually turned out ok because Mexicans are very polite drivers if someone needs to do something unorthodox, they'll assume you have a good reason (like no brakes) and let you through. I made it to the church and then off to a mechanic-- down a huge hill with a sizable ditch at the end... via the old- brake pumping method-- there was enough brake fluid left in the system to keep us from going over the edge.
The Mechanic decided it was the master cylinder and sent us on a 30 minute drive to the store to get the part ( without brakes...) halfway there the brakes were almost completely gone-- we made it out onto a 4 lane throughway down a hill and up a hill and then halfway down another hill and into the car parts place parking lot...
for $30 we purchased another master cylinder and for another $5.00 a super-large bottle of brake fluid- which we put into the master cylinder for the 30 minute return trip.
5 minutes into the trip i had no brakes again and once again we crawled back to the shop where for $10.00 labour the mechanic spent an hour fixing the master cylinder.
We went to check out some land and then to class-- which went well. We had an exciting discussion about eternal security and the perseverance of the believer...
Then I piled about 10 people into our 6 seat van and drove them back to their home... then the brakes failed again- My side door is permanently locked for some reason so all the folks in the back had to climb out of the front door--- It must have looked like the clowns in the VW bug with the never ending line of folks coming out the front door!!
So back to the mechanics (up and down large hills in the dark- with little brakes) to wake him up and fix the brakes again at about 10:00pm...
He replaced a brakeline (actually kind of fashioned his own line out of spare parts!!) and adjusted the brakes and sent me home at about Midnight...in Mexico...
It's not wise to drive that late at night, but had little choice and so off I went. about halfway home I saw 6 cows in the median of the road. I gently slowed down from 100km/h to 80km/h and kept my high beams on regardless of oncoming traffic. The week before we saw someone on the side of the road after hitting a cow and destroying their vehicle. 2 weeks before I saw a van on fire on the side of the road. Normally you would think to stop- but it is not too unusual for thieves to burn an abandoned car waiting for someone to stop to help- and then rob them-- also in Mexico you are guilty until proven innocent, so if the police were to happen to see you there- you would be assumed to be the culprit and held in jail until you could prove your innocence... I slowed down and noticed no one around or in the van and kept on going...
I'm thankful for the safety I had and the economical fix to the problem-- please continue to pray for our vehicle situations-- I am waiting for red tape to be cleared in importing a 1991 Ford Explorer 4x4 to handle the roads better. Right now the trips on the bad roads is slowly dismantling my van! I think sometime in the near future we may just need to buy a newer 4x4 as a regular vehicle. We ought not buy a new one because in the neighbourhoods we work in a new SUV makes you a target for kidnappers or thieves or corrupt police or uncorrupt police assuming you may be drug dealers-- so older, and reliable is better!!
We appreciate your prayers for safety!!
Until next time,
Mike
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