We were driving from our home to the center of Priština to do some business, but needed to first stop in at the Swedish NATO military base. Our car had started just fine when leaving home, but after just about 20 minutes on the base, when we turned the key to start the car, it was dead: no clicking, no turning over of the engine, nothing. Just silence. Andrew got frustrated since the car was starting fine and there was no “physical” reason he could think of why it would not start now. I suggested he look under the hood, that maybe a wire had come loose. But he resisted, saying “How could a wire come loose while the car was sitting still?” Finally when he had no other recourse, he relented and popped the hood. The very first thing he noticed was the wire to the coil had fallen off. Huh! He put it back on, and vroom! The car started like a charm.

Proceeding on our way to the city, we reached the outskirts and saw that the traffic was being diverted. We followed the detour and tried to make our way to the parking lot where we always park, but it was inaccessible. It seemed there had been a bomb blast in that very lot where we were planning to park only 15 minutes before. Now, how did that wire fall off, anyway? Was it just a lucky coincidence?

I’ve Taken a Collection for You

One of our military friends approached us one day and said, “The chaplain on our base has been taking up a collection at each Sunday’s service during his stay here in Kosovo. He’s been here for 6 months, but now he’s leaving, and he didn’t know what to do with the money, so he asked me if I knew of a good charity to which he could give the money he’d raised. I recommended you guys.” He handed us an envelope and we thanked him politely without looking inside. Once home we opened it and were amazed to see 2,000 Euros inside! We’d heard the expression “Pennies from Heaven”, but to receive a contribution like this was incredible and far exceeded our expectations!