WAGGONER BREAKING NEWS

As Reported By Sandy Waggoner

Dear Ones, Prayer Warriors,

We would like to share with you: The Tale of Two Legs.

Greg’s leg…….

Early in October, we went to the Yakima Home Missions Conference. What an exciting time. So many people gather to have God touch their hearts concerning home missions. Sermons are prepared by men of God and songs glorify His Holy name. Friends, new and old meet. We could not wait. As we drove into the Yakima-Selah area, traffic thickened just like the eagerness to see what God would do.

While setting up the camper, Greg took a spill. He thought nothing of it until a few hours later when his ankle started hurting. “I think I may have hurt my ankle,” was all he said. When we got back to the camper, we pulled off his shoe and sock. He had a bruise with a blister where he must have hit his ankle, and his foot had started to swell. We put ice on it and thought that would do the trick. Surely it was not broken because he could still walk.

That night his toes turned beautiful shades of blue, purple, and black and the swelling was more prominent. That meant his cowboy boots would not go on his feet, so he chose his lace-up boots for the meeting. They would give more support and he could lace the boot looser on his sprained ankle. Still, he could walk…even though it hurt more.

By afternoon Greg was determined to get out of those lace-ups! Bro. Kim and Denise Earhart followed us to a farm store to look for moccasins. No moccasins. But they introduced Greg to ‘Hey Dude’ shoes. They were very soft and comfortable! (Thank you, Bro. Kim and Denise, and your church!) Those ‘Hey Dudes’ helped a bunch.

Now the swelling was a whole foot thing and going up his leg. The bruise was spreading, too. BUT…he could still walk!

Then in First Baptist Church of John Day, Oregon he stubbed his toe on the step going up on the platform. A gasp like a mighty wind rushed over the crowd! But he could still walk…even though I could tell his smile was in pain! And he sang beautifully!

Two weeks later, our daughter, Kelloway brought Thane to visit us in Red Lodge, Montana. Kelloway is a Registered Nurse, and it seems she had been talking with her sister, Tandolynn who is a Nurse Practitioner. The first thing she wanted to see was Dad’s leg. She persuaded him to see a doctor. Bro. Russell Pruitt called his doctor, and he agreed to squeeze him in. On Monday morning (2 weeks after the injury) Greg and Kelloway were on their way. After an x-ray, the diagnosis was…drum roll…a fracture! The tendon had pulled a small piece of bone away from the femur. Now Greg has a new boot, and it is right in style. It is an opened, square-toed, black plastic, Velcro-strapped, safety boot.

God is so good! No surgery was required and in two more weeks, he can advance to some sort of medical lace-up brace. Oh! And he won’t have to sleep in the recliner anymore!

The Camper Leg…..

As we hooked up to leave Red Lodge the left front camper leg refused to move. The motor whined in complaint, but the leg would not budge. And that is why campers come with a manual crank…(besides Greg!) Greg and Kelloway searched the depths of the camper’s underbelly and finally found it. Greg hooked it up and turned, and turned, and turned. The leg eased up a fraction of the needed space. To give her dad a break, Kelloway grabbed the crank handle and turned. That gripey crank was not easy to turn, and the camper leg was not moving.

We were parked on the property of Kyle and Randi Pruitt. Randi was the one who discovered us parking on their property. No one had told her we were going to be there. She just turned in her drive and there we were. She jammed the brakes on, and the rocks in the drive scattered. Then she saw our sideboards with our gwcowboypreacher.com on them, realized who we were, smiled, and waved. She was relieved we were no stranger than we are and let us finish setting up our camper.

Randi looked out her window and saw we were having trouble getting the camper ready to go. Randi zoomed out to give us a cranking hand. Kelloway was breathing hard and glad to hand the cranking over to her. Like mighty Wonder Woman, she took the crank in hand and rolled circle after circle for a little bit. Then the crank stopped. It jammed. Wonder Woman’s muscles bulged. Nothing happened. She took a deep breath and pushed with all her might…BOOM! SNAP! BELCH of DIRT! Sag like a R.I.P.

It got so quiet after the sonic boom.

Something had broken. The shaft in the gearbox that turned the camper leg!

We were able to slide under the camper with the truck to hook up, but we would have to stay hooked to the camper until it was fixed. God’s blessings through this?

* Wonder Woman was never the cause of the problem, but she and her husband wanted to help pay for this to be fixed. “We do that for God’s special people. We don’t have to, we want to.” (Greg is very special!)…just joking! (Dear Wonder Woman, thank you and your husband so much!)

* Pastor Pruitt told us where to go in Billings, Montana to get the part. We got there, parked, and Greg walked into the huge camper place. He found that they could not work on our camper until January! This was October! However, the salesman looked Greg up and down and then told him he looked to be capable of fixing the gear. After all, you can find ‘how to do videos on Google.

* The camper has two front legs. Greg thought he might as well get two gear repair kits. But when he asked for another, the salesman told him that was all they had, and it had only come in that morning. God did that just for us!

* When the salesman found out Greg was an evangelist, he shared that his five-year-old son had been responsible for winning he and his wife to the Lord. Then he gave Greg a 10% discount.

* We drove from Red Lodge, Montana to Genoa, Illinois without unhooking from the camper. No matter where we needed to go the camper must be in tow. We left on Tuesday and arrived on Thursday. Friday Greg put together the repair kit, and with the help of Bro. Zach Davis put the leg back on.

* However, the leg would not retract. So…Greg ordered a motor for the leg which came in on Sunday.

* Monday Greg put the motor on, but alas! It did not fix the problem!

* Greg called a mobile R.V. repairman. He came on Tuesday. Together they fixed the camper leg. He told Greg that it was just loose. He tightened things, and that leg did exactly what it was supposed to do!

Through the ‘Tale of Both Legs’, God’s blessings were showered upon us. We thank the many people God placed in our path, and we praise His mighty name for each one of them! To God be the glory!