I am a frequent interstate traveler. I was born in Ontario, Canada and thus all my family except my husband and children live there. So three times a year I make a trip north from Georgia to visit. I often travel by myself as my children are all grown and my husband is working.

Two years ago I went up in the spring and brought one of my sisters south for a month to take away the pains of a long winter. This year I did the same. It is interesting that many of my friends have said "Aren't you scared?" or "What if you break down?”. I always respond that I have a lot of faith in the Lord and in myself. My husband is a mechanic and each year gives my 230,000+ miles car a good checkup. He will come for me if I need help.

Here is how my miracle happened on Interstate 85 North in South Carolina. Heading north to take my sweet sister of 63 home to Canada, we were chatting away and I was driving 70 miles per hour in the third lane over. Yes, the fastest lane. All of a sudden, I started to lose power. I said anxiously I was losing power and got over to the next and then the right lane, I was driving at about 40 miles per hour when I got to the first exit. I finally arrived at a Citgo station and pulled off the road.

I immediately called my husband and he didn't answer. I was thinking he never answered his phone. I called 2 more times saying please answer the phone to myself. I was getting pretty upset thinking what I should do. I got out of the car and looked under it and smelled gas. Then* I checked the oil and water. Luckily, both were good! My sister went into the gas station and said to the clerk if he knew anyone who could help us and then said pray for us as she made her way to the rest room.

I was standing by my car when a man with broken English suddenly appeared.

I thanked my rescuer and asked him if I could pay him for his help.

Julia always enjoyed running through The Dark Walk towards the light at the end of it. It was a dark, damp tunnel (隧道) made of smooth branches. This year she had the extra joy of showing it to her small brother, Stephen, and terrifying him as well as herself.

One day they found a hole on one side of the walk. Inside there was water, in which they perceived a panting trout (喘息的鳟鱼). They were both so excited that they were no longer afraid of the darkness as they bent down and peered at the fish panting in his tiny prison, his silver stomach going up and down like an engine; otherwise he was motionless. Julia wondered what he ate and thought of his hunger. She found him a worm. He ignored the food, and just went on panting. Bending over him, she thought how he had been in there. All the winter, in the dark tunnel, all day, all night, floating around alone.

Nobody knew how the fish got there. Her mother suggested that a bird had carried the egg. Her father thought that in the winter a small stream might have carried it down there as a baby, and it has been safe until summer came and the water began to dry up. Before they went to bed, Stephen asked his mummy the whole story of the trout, not really interested in the actual trout, but in the story which his mum began to make up for him, and Julia, in her bed, presented her back to them and read her book. But she kept one ear cocked. “And so, in the end, this naughty fish got bigger and bigger, and the water got smaller and smaller...” Passionately, she turned around and cried, “Mummy, don’t make it a horrible old moral story. Her mom even brought in a fairy (仙子), who had made it rain and filled the hole, so that the trout could float away down to the river below. Staring at the moon she knew there was no such thing as a fairy and that trout, down in the tunnel, was panting for his life.

She sat up in the silent night and Stephen was sound asleep.

Julia poured the trout out of the pot into the river.

Our church congregation (集会) in Toronto has a way of assisting those who have financial difficulties without making the receiver feel shame or guilt. Money is dropped into an offering box with only the name of the receiver on the envelope. The envelopes are then distributed to those members without them knowing the name of the giver.

There came a time when my husband and I were among those in need. Both of us lost jobs at that time and there was little hope that we could be employed within a short time. Of course, out of self-esteem (自尊), we did not talk about our financial difficulty with anyone else. The only reason our children knew was that we had to cut back on many things. Still, we hoped they were not aware of the extent of our need, nor of how much their father and I were suffering because of it. We did not want to burden them with a problem they could do nothing to solve.

With time going by, our situation wasn’t improving, and my husband and I knew that we would have to look for outside help. In that cold winter, just as we reached the point of despair, our church gave us a gift envelope that had been left in the offering box. You couldn’t imagine how overjoyed we were on receiving such a very substantial amount of money, which was enough to bring us through that desperate time. We couldn’t help but wonder who had given such a generous gift. We were extremely relieved and enormously grateful. In this way, we could survive this tough period with the money. Besides, we needn’t worry about our son’s university tuition, that is, he needn’t apply for any loan because he had taken a part-time job and worked hard to earn some money since he was nine years old. He had been a paper carrier for The Toronto Star, a car washer, a dishwasher and so on. He had been careful for his small earnings so we had trusted him to leave all his wages with him instead of putting it into the bank towards his education.

A year later, our son was applying for a student loan.

Finally, in tears, and with great unwillingness, my son told us the truth.