…a secular saying that I much prefer to the also-common, “No good deed goes unpunished.”

The reason we do the right thing should never be because of the expectation of reward… But the rewards sure are nice!

Let me strart with one older example of good character shining through.

We lived in Northern Arizona for three years, and were converting and fixing up an old building. We had an account at the local hardware store, and Wolf was there frequently.

Naturally, over the course of time, he had the opportunity to deal fairly with merchandise issues, cashier errors, account payments, and everything else.

So one day he walked in with an item he needed to return. A new employee was at the register, and informed him that she could not take the return without a receipt – since after all, he could have bought it somewhere else.

The other cashier turned to her and said it was okay, and she should go ahead.

“Why?” the first cashier naturally asked.

Because it’s Wolf.

Enough said!

Lately, we’ve had some other real blessings illustrate this fact.

Wolf and Nick have gone down a few times to volunteer at our local Angel Food distribution site. Being a sociable guy, Wolf has naturally talked to everyone and made friends.

A couple of weeks ago, one of the organizers at the Angel Food site called Wolf. She said there was a job opening at the school where she worked, and she had asked the hiring manager to hold off his decision until he could interview Wolf.

Wolf trekked up and talked to the man on a Friday, and later recounted that it was more like a chat about what the job had to offer than an interview about Wolf’s qualifications.

He was supposed to return Tuesday or Wednesday for a follow-up interview with the administration. But on Monday the manager called and asked if he could come in right away and start working.

The rest, as they say, is history.

(Yeah, it’s a complicated story in other aspect of our life, but that’s a separate post…)

Don’t miss the point here:

Wolf was essentially hired for a job sight-unseen, based on a referral from a brand-new friend he met while serving as a volunteer at a Christian charity organization.

Wow!

Now, because of this job transition, we will be living full-time in our RV for while.

(Oh yeah, here’s another bonus: the other organizer from the Angel Food site knows a pastor who agreed to let us park at the full RV hookups they put in at the back of their church lot!)

We have cats. A lot of them. Okay, one “old lady” and three big fat “kids” who still think they’re kittens even though they’re over two years old now.

The “babies” were heroically rescued on nearly our very first day in Florida.
Previously, we went on the road for seven months (before R.T. was born) with two kids and two “old ladies”. They had a litter box in the bathroom, and we worked it out… But with FOUR cats, and three of them energetic youngsters?

We seriously considered finding them a home.

This just felt totally wrong to me. I felt it was not the right solution, since they were clearly placed in our care and stewardship by God. And Jewel, in particular, is very attached to them – especially her cat, Piggy.

After some iterations of cat runs, cat doors, and litter removal options, Wolf hit on a plan to build a little “cat room” that would fit up against the RV and be accessed through a cat door in the rear door. Further debate about cleaning cat boxes and people-sized access evolved it into a sort of full-sized shed.

So, because we wanted to do the right thing for our kids and cats, we now have a lot of extra storage space.

We will be able to put our existing chest freezer in there, and even a washer and dryer!!

That left my biggest concern about RV living with three kids as refrigerator space.

We shopped little fridges at Home Depot, just to see what was out there. Maybe we could start saving up for one, or find one used, right?

They come in a couple of sizes, not a lot of options… But they all have the silly little “freezer” area that never gets cold enough, and is only big enough for ice cube trays anyway.

Wouldn’t it be nice, we said, if there was one that was just a fridge?

But oh, well, we can’t afford one, anyway…

The next time we wre at Home Depot for supplies, it was a different store, so we decided to stop by and look at their mini-fridge selection.

About the same.

Wolf reiterated his complaint that the little pseudo-freezer was just a waste of space.

Then, suddenly, we noticed one dusty fridge shoved to the back. Pulling it out, we saw… It was a tad bigger capacity than those others – and had no freezer compartment! WOW!

No shelf tag; it was an orphan. Hmmmm…

Wolf went off to find an employee, but in the meantime Nick and I found a clearance tag stuck on it. The tag said it was marked down to $147 – less than the smallest of the other “regular” models!

It was still money we weren’t budgeting for that, but we decided it was put there for us, and we would be foolish to pass it by.

At the register, the cashier was confused. She scanned it in, and it came up with a price of $0.01!

She called a supervisor over.

The supervisor looked things over and said, “Well, I can’t sell it to you for $0.01.”

No surprise there.

But I can let you have it for ten bucks.

“Are you serious?” I couldn’t help asking.

She was.

The item was discontinued, and had already been zeroed out of their system as having been sent back to the manufacturer. It might have been a recall, she said, there was no way of knowing – so she wasn’t supposed to sell it to us.

But instead, she was offering it to us for $10.

We managed to wait until we were out of the store to jump up and down, shout for joy, weep, and praise the Lord.

For $10, and kindness to animals, my biggest RV living challenge is solved.

God is good.

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