by Pamela Konstant, PCJH attender and current missionary at Camp des Cimes in France
“I was blessed to have my daughter come over Christmas and help cook for the Camp of teenagers we had over New Year’s. We had a great time together!
While she was here, we had a few moments of excitement and adventure; as a few crazy moments were thrown our way. Take, for instance, our movie night. After several days of cooking for the Camp non-stop, Iris and I decided to take a breather and go to the town to see Star Wars. (In case you are wondering, it was indeed in French. Nope, no subtitles.) On the way to the theatre, my little French Renault car flashed a “faiblesse pression d’huile” (low oil pressure) warning. I thought perhaps the oil level was low. It was still running well and showed no sign of leaks. I resolved to check the oil later on and we went to enjoy the film.
We got out of the movie at about 10pm. We got in the car and it fired up fine. It didn’t show the warning for a brief moment; but then the warning came back. Regardless, it still managed to run and, being a dark night with no place open to get oil at that hour, we set off for home up the mountain. I added checking the oil to my to do list for the morning.
About a mile outside of the town, in a rather rural area, the car stalled and lost power all together. Uh oh. It started right up again, but stalled again within a few moments. I coasted as best I could to the side of the road. There she sat, a pool of oil underneath, refusing to start. Luckily, one of the Camp team members came and got Iris and me off the dark stretch of highway.
The next morning, I sent the car from the side of the highway on a tow truck back to the dealer for what I hope will be warranty service. At the time of writing this blog I still don’t know the prognosis and if the warranty will cover it. But that afternoon, Iris and I were laughing and talking about our little misadventure of the night. She started by saying, “It’s a good thing we didn’t decide to do a road trip.” We had talked of driving to Geneva or Marseilles, a couple of hours away. Yes, it was a good thing.
That led to a whole list of “good things”…”