God Deeds This Christmas!

Well, we made it home, thanks be to God, and our 4x4 truck! Travelling through the Rockies is always an experience, but this year, it was worse than ever! Never seen so many cars in the ditches, never been first on scene to two mishaps before either.

Travelling from Edmonton to Kelowna was great until we hit the BC border, things went downhill from Valemont to Kelowna. Here's a picture of what the roads were like:

That's black ice.

We rounded a corner and came across a guy in the snowbank. My husband and I got out of our big 4x4 truck (Ford Lariat), fully dressed in Inut coats and waterproof boots and mitts, hooked up our rope, pulled the guy out, and went on our way. We stopped a little ways up to fix the luggage, and the guy we pulled out of the ditch stopped to thank us again. He was in running shoes, and a light jean jacket, only thing that saved him from being a total idiot is that he had 4 kittens with him. As we drove away, my husband starts laughing, I ask him why, he told me "Us rednecks just pulled a Lexus driving yuppie out of the snowbank". We of course had to tell this story to my sister, who used to drive a Lexus.

Coming home, between Vernon and Kamloops, all I see is this car swerving towards us, then the car hits the rock embankment and we slow to help. Meanwhile my husband is yelling that another car went over the opposite embankment, into the water, my worse nightmare!

I'm first to peer down the 20 foot embankment, and sure enough, there is a truck taking on water. The Dad has his daughter out the window, he yells that they are all okay, as his son passes him a black lab, and then jumps to safety. All we could do was to help them up the embankment, and watch as the truck slowly sank with all their belongings. The poor teenage son was in tears, all he managed to say was, "It's supposed to be Christmas". I felt so sorry for them, you could tell by what they were driving and wearing that they didn't have much to begin with, and now even that was lost.

My boys were very quiet as we drove away. Finally my youngest piped up and said, "Mom, that's twice we did good deeds this trip". It just wasn't us, I was amazed by the number of people who jumped out of their cars, ready to help. That is the true Christmas spirit, not the gifts, not even the going to Church, it's the human spirit, the willingness to help those in need. No one asked that Dad, saving his children, and his dog, whether he was a Liberal, or NDP, or Conservative, it just didn't matter.

So, I hope you enjoyed your Christmas, after I quit shaking, I thanked God. Funny how the sun broke through, just as we approached the Alberta border. It truly is God's Country!

And I'm happy to be back here, with my family safe and sound. The most dangerous thing I'm going to do for awhile is blog!