It seems a little strange to get emotional about a vehicle, but that is exactly what happened to me when I found that our good old trusty four-wheel-drive Toyota Hilux had had a coronary, overheating and blowing a head gasket. Of course bypass surgery or heart transplant would solve the problem, but this is a very tired truck. A very faithful truck. A truck that has given and given and given until there is little left to give. This mission truck has truly given its last full measure of devotion.

The memories attached to this truck go back more than 11 years. This truck was truly an answer to prayer. A used vehicle in like-new condition. Everything we had hoped for at half the price we had expected to pay. The Viper, as Stephanie called it, took us to Manila when we had to leave Palawan in 2001 after the 9/11 attack. It was the truck we drove when we got the news that our friends, Martin and Gracia Burnham, who had been abducted by Abu Sayaf terrorists, had been shot by the Philippine military in a rescue attempt. Martin died, but Gracia survived.

I remember the time we loaded 42 people into and on top of the truck and drove them out to Bingbilang. It was a bit cramped with seven people in the front seat.

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I have lost track of the number of ambulance runs the truck has made. Sick people, dying people, desperate people. Babies, mothers, old and young. The truck also served as a hearse, bringing back the bodies of those who did not survive. I remember once when the hospital called and told me the baby girl I had brought from the mountains had died. It was my job to pick up the little body and return it to the parents. I knew I couldn’t just put the body in the back seat and go bumping on out to the trail head, so I found the nicest cardboard box I had, wrapped the body in some spare material and tucked that precious little baby in for the very last time. I then placed that sad little box in the faithful truck and took her back to her parents. They were waiting for us, and the father asked if he could open the small box and take one last look at his little daughter. We drove away feeling so sad.

I wanted to take good care of the truck, but with the constant demands on it, there was little time to keep things fixed as they should have been. When the clutch master cylinder gave out, the only replacement available was a cheap aftermarket item from China. I became an expert at changing the master cylinder. The best one lasted six months; the worst one only seven days. Ultimately, I became quite adept at driving without the clutch. I would baby it along, apologizing to it each time I ground the gears. I can still tell you the exact speeds when to shift, and when the tachometer was working, I could tell you the exact RPMs. However, driving in Puerto Princesa’s stop-and-go traffic jams was something I never really mastered without the clutch. On one occasion, I was in Puerto when the clutch master cylinder expired once again, and I just about ran over a policeman. But it was not a big deal because that is how everyone else drives, too.

I remember the day we were returning from Puerto and I saw the left front wheel rolling away ahead of us and then off into a rice paddy. I don’t know why it fell off, but we retrieved our errant wheel, bolted it back on and continued home none the worse for wear.

The dear old Viper was subjected to some of the worst conditions imaginable to man. Four-wheel-drive was a necessity, not a luxury. The transfer case shifter lever couldn’t handle the stress, and at unexpected moments would shift out of gear and refuse to shift back in. The only solution was to remove the floorboard cover (by this time we no longer needed to take out our the floor mats, they were distant history) wrestle out screws, bolts, wires, misc. plastic and rubber thingies all covered with mud and grease, and then, with a screwdriver, reach into a black hole in the top of the transfer case and hope that, with enough poking and prying, the 14 waiting people could soon continue their journey.

The chief villain that hastened the demise of our dear vehicle was the evil National Highway. Despite its uppity-sounding name, it would be difficult to find a worse road anywhere on the planet. To warn of the largest potholes, clever road engineers would lay out speed bumps with no warning that ambush you when you least expect. I have witnessed two motorcycle crashes caused by these speed bumps. Speed-bump encounters created a spider web of stress cracks across our truck’s floorboards that allowed water to pass in and out freely. Nice when you spill your lemonade, but not so nice when fording a flooded stream. Also, the unavoidable pounding has broken all the pinch welds that hold the rocker panels on, vibrated fenders off, cracked wheel bearings in half, broken springs and torn off shock absorbers along with their welded steel mounts. The life expectancy of a $150 off-road tire is a maximum of 10,000 miles, though a few lasted less than 1,000. The seats have now fallen through the floor and are resting on top of the transmission.

Our dear Viper endured this continuous abuse so that it could help people. In a sense, it is one of the best Christians around. It did not preach sermons, it lived them. But the time has now come for our faithful Toyota to be put out to pasture. We hope to get it running again, but it will become a farm truck; still helping people as it always has, but living out its days at a slower pace.

Just a week ago, we received the go-ahead to raise funds for another truck. If you feel nudged by the Holy Spirit to give funds for a vehicle, I know the Viper would be very happy to pass the torch to a younger vehicle. To give a cup of cold water, to help the widows and the orphans, to care as only Christians are meant to care.

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