Blessings and Miracles.....

We started our business back in January 2000 and it's been a long hard road since then.  Then again we have experienced far more blessings and miracles along the way than most other people.

Some people would call miracles as simply coincidences or "just because".  Some people call blessings as "you deserved it".   I call them both from God.

It's only that I have had my faith for the last 13 years that I have been able to cope with all the things that have happened in our life.  Yes it's been hard but I have no idea how I would have / could have coped without my faith.

    

My regret is that I didn't write them all down at the time that they occured.

It certainly would have made for a good read if I read written them ALL down!

Last Friday was an absolute classic case.

Our Coaches have been sitting in the shed looking at us for most of this year.  It's been a pretty tough time economically in Grafton this year.  Businesses have closed down, many major to the town as far as employment goes.   Then all the political unrest and threat of upcoming elections certainly hasn't provided our older clientele with confidence.  Families have moved out of town seeking employment elsewhere.   People just don't have the confidence to spend money and touring on a coach and having a holiday or sending your children on an excursion be it a day trip or week long in Canberra is certainly a luxury.

However the last couple of weeks things seemed to pick up a little as far as school excursions go.  We were busy.  Drivers were coming and going.  Coaches were coming and going and we were starting to feel a little confident about the next couple of months.

Then disaster on Friday.   We had 4 Coaches making their way back from Canberra and the Snow.  It had been a stressy kind of week worrying about the drivers driving overnight.  Vehicles running so long and hard during the night. 

At 9.00 am on Friday morning Alan got the call we always dread.  One of our coaches had broken down outside of Goulburn.   Everything just stopped on the Coach which meant it was a computer problem.   (An ECM which basically controls all of the Coach).   It decided at that time on that day that it really didn't feel like going anymore.  And there was nothing we could have done to maintenance wise to prevent this.  When they die, they just die without warning!

Our driver managed to get the Coach off the road and called up Alan to contemplate the next course of action.  There were 55 passengers on board that 57 seater coach together with all their luggage.

Within 10 minutes of Tony pulling up, up comes another Coach who pulls over to see if he could help.  Just happened to be another operator that we sold one of our coaches to in January this year.  Mat had reminded Alan and myself of how we were all those years ago when we started out in the business.  Keen & enthusiastic and extremely optomistic.  So when we sold him our coach we gave him  our time, talked to him, gave him more spare parts than was necessary.   Mat had seen our Coach on the side of the road, remembered us and thought he needed to help.

Mat's coach had seating for 48 and he was empty.  He offered to drive those 48 passengers up the road to wherever he could to help us out.  The teachers worked who would go and who would stay with Tony, so that lot got on his vehicle and got going.  The remaining group consisted of two parents and their own children and their friends and our driver Tony.

By this time Alan, myself and some of our other staff had madly been on the phones trying to find another coach to transfer the remaining passengers back home and to catch up with the first group but all operators around that area and in Sydney were busy and no coaches were available.  (a good time of year for everyone!)  Alan had also called up a mechanical repairer in Goulburn who was on his way to try and fix our coach.

When he finally arrived about 30 minutes later it was decided that our coach wasn't going anywhere but he just happened to have a coach sitting in his depot that we could use to transfer our remaining kids home.   Miracle or coincidence?

By this time Alan had organised for another coach operator to take over from Mat at Wyong and then we could transfer all the group back home in one coach to Urunga.  So while one coach was miles ahead, Tony loaded the remaining group onto the Mechanics coach and drove straight through to Wyong, only stopping when absolutely necessary. 

Now the other miracle is that Alan had only recently reconnected with the operator in Wyong about 2 - 3 weeks ago.  They were friends from years ago when Alan took over being Foreman (at 21) from this man when he left to start his own business.  George took Alan under hisnwing and taught him lots before he left Alan in charge of the workshop for a very large Sydney company.   So what had made Alan decide to re connect with George those 3 weeks ago?   Was that coincidence or what?

So the story continues.....all the coaches met up in Wyong and transferred over to Georges brand new coach.  The coach that Tony had driven up from Goulburn was left at George's depot at Wyong and now all the students and teachers were all back together again on the one coach.  Our original coach was at the Mechanic's depot in Goulburn.

Instead of getting home at 6.00 pm the group got back to Urunga at 8.00 pm - not bad timing considering all that had  happened during the day.

A miracle?  Well it gets better.

On the Friday we also had 3 more coaches returning to Grafton from Canberra & the Snow and due to the distance we had to have 3 other drivers at Raymond Terrace to take over from the original drivers as they would have been outside their regulated driving hours by the time they returned back to the depot.  This is something that happens quite often and we just "stage" drivers at various locations on the road so that the original driver jumps out and another takes over to continue the journey. 

Well all the problems with the Goulburn Coach just happened to happen before the 3 relieving drivers had left Grafton, so our son Mitch jumped into the coach with the 3 drivers and dropped them off at Raymond Terrace and continued onto Sydney with the intention of heading to Goulburn to try and rescue our original coach.

Alan decided that he would meet up with George when he dropped off our students at Urunga and head back to Wyong with George and then collect the Goulburn mechanic's coach from his depot and travel back to Goulburn to work on our coach with Mitch.

During the day, Alan was able to secure from 2 different sources 4 different types of ECM's to try and see if they could fix the problem with our coach in Goulburn.  Trying to source one of these would normally be difficult enough but to find operators and suppliers with 4 for him to try is nothing short of a miracle.  And even better we had a friend who was able to travel around to these places on Friday to collect the computers so that they were ready for Alan and Mitchell on Saturday morning. 

Blessing or coincidence?

The long and the short of the saga is that on Saturday morning (after very little sleep for Alan), Alan and Mitchell were able to drop off the Goulburn Coach and fix our coach all with the help of another of Mitchell's friends who was able to help out by driving a car back for them to Sydney.  They had fixed the broken coach within an hour of them arriving in Goulburn.

And by having the breakdown it meant that Alan and Mitchell were able to bring home from Sydney another coach that we had just purchased that was waiting for us in Sydney. 

Today they are on their way home from Sydney with each of them driving a Coach.

Out of a truly terrible situation, one that had both my stomach and Alans' absolutely tied up in knots on Friday came quite a few miracles and blessings beyond our belief.  Yes it is going to cost us extra dollars for the hiring of all the extra vehicles.  Whatever little profit we may have made from the "good" week will now surely be eaten up in hiring of additional coaches but we were able to get the children home only 2 hours late and that was the main priority for us.

Yes Alan is absolutely totally exhausted today.  His stomach is still recovering from the upheaval it was put through on Friday.  He is running out of adrenalin but the blessings from the events far outweigh the negatives.

And our life goes on.

Today it's 30 days until we leave on our holiday but inwardly we are both starting to panic about all the things we need to get done beforehand and hoping nothing like last Friday happens while we are away.

Anyway we just have to continue to hold onto that faith.........