unexpected blessings...

The "old" snow blower still works, but for how long?
For the record I am NOT talking about Howard :)

It's three week into January and we've had  real wintery weather since December.  Lots of snow that kept piling up.  One time during the Christmas holidays we had a real heavy snowfall and even our old snow blower couldn't manage to get through it.  As we both struggled to clear a path, one of the neighbours pulled in with his bobcat and with a couple of swoops had our whole driveway cleared of the heavy wet snow!  Wow what a blessing.  We offered to pay him for it, but he wouldn't hear of it.  "Oh it's just something neighbours do".  I had just baked a bunch of goodies and came out with a plateful in thanks for his work.  He didn't have a place to put it anywhere, but told us that we could drop it off at the house.  He gave us his address (no it wasn't quite next door to us) and the next day we tried looking for it.  A lot of places in our rural area don't post their house numbers.  With snow covering a lot of the signs as well it took us a couple of weeks to locate his house!  Well yesterday we found it!  I had made a fresh batch of cinnamon buns and we finally could deliver what we had promised.

it does look kinda pretty...

Earlier this year we had another neighbour stop by with his tractor to clear our driveway.  He happened to drive by and saw an opportunity to help out without being asked.  No payment was expected or anything, so you guessed it...another batch of cinnamon buns went to his house.  We had no problem locating his house.

We have been praying for our neighbours.  Asking God for ways to connect with them and be a blessing in their lives.  So we were very surprised to be on the receiving end of unexpected blessings by two of our neighbours this past month.  We are hoping to invite a couple of our neighbours over to our home in the next couple of weeks for an informal get together over coffee.  We'll let you know how it goes.

By the way...The old snowblower was breaking down each time he would use it, and up to now he has been able to fix it to get by.  Getting parts for it is impossible since it isn't manufactured any longer, and you can't get any replacement parts for it.  It is probably about 50 years old.  I am blessed with a husband who is pretty ingenious at manufacturing parts to fix things.  The shop with all its tools has been a great blessing.  But just this week Howard found a "newer" snowblower at an auction nearby and at a pretty good price too!  It seems to work well after he made some minor adjustments and fixes.  Another blessing!