Southeast Tour

Greetings and salutations,

I am not in Florida anymore. I greet you from Florence Alabama. In the last half week and for the next three weeks or so I am traveling through the great states of Alabama, Tennessee, Mississippi and Louisiana. I am traveling on a banquet tour. The purpose of this tour is to raise awareness of the work Wycliffe Associates is doing with Bible translation. I have been allowed to travel along and raise support for my own ministry with Wycliffe Associates.
Besides the number of months I have lived in Florida now; I am visiting the south east for the first time. As I drive down the roads, I am noticing the colors starting to change in the trees. The temperature has dropped dramatically from Florida. I left during a cool spell there, where the temperatures were in the 80's during the day and 60's at night. The temperatures have been in the 60's in the day and tonight plants are being covered to protect them from freezing in Florence.
I have been encouraged by the families I have already stayed with on this trip. They have been generous with their hospitality and fellowship.
I am very thankful to God for his protection on this trip. I check my car every day before I head out to make sure it is in good condition and in general the car has performed well. I did have a bit of a wobble when I got up to speed and I had thought one of my tires might be out of alignment. Today knowing I had a whole day without a banquet, I decided I better get the alignment checked on the car so no damage would come from it. My host family in Florence referred me to a mechanic in Florence by the name of Dennis. Dennis surprised me by pointing out that both my back tires were starting to split and come apart. It was recent as I had looked at my tires the day before as usual and did not see any splitting. One of the tire rod ends had also fallen off. Happily Dennis saw the problems and is fixing the car even now so I can continue on my journey. I am getting the front tires rotated to the back and two new tires put on the car.
This issue with the wheels could have proven a very serious issue for me if the wheels had actually fallen apart while I drove; so once again I thank God for calling my attention to the state of the car (in the wobble) and for pointing out the problem to Dennis so quickly and clearly. As a note, I should have had the balance issue in my car looked at far earlier, as I had tell tale signs of this for a while now. So I encourage any of you out there with possible problem like this to have it looked at. Happily nothing else is wrong with the car.

Update: I have come back from the mechanic shop and my car is fixed and feels great. So I am set to continue on this grand adventure through the southern part of the USA.