At the end of December, a decision was made to bring the bus to Finland for a thorough check up and repairs as there were multiple things in the bus that needed fixing. In Finland, Raimo Laine, a volunteer mechanic, who rebuilt the bus when it was first purchased, was able to work on it in his own shop.
After a month of maintenance by Raimo and his wife, Anna-Mari, the bus was ready to go back to ministry. But first it needed to be driven back to Hungary! Our driver Thomas writes about the drive back to Hungary:
With all the knowledge in the backpack we hit the road. Right before we managed to get to the Tallinn ferry, we had to stop at a traffic light and there we stood. The bus refused to accept a gear and the dashboard showed a warning signal. After a while a police car showed up and asked if we needed help. They were not that happy seeing us parked at the intersection. John [Bus4Life coordinator, John Theuns] reached out to Raimo for advice. I cut the power of the bus hoping a reboot would solve the problem and asked my friends to pray for a solution. Raimo came up with the solution: The emergency mode of the gearbox was activated which allowed us to put in the gear and get out of the intersection.
John was able to find a Volvo shop for trucks close to where we were. We drove there and they had time to have a closer look at the bus – on a Saturday! The outcome of the analysis was that a corroded connection in the gear box controller caused the problem. They replaced the corroded part and a test-drive proofed that they did an excellent job! As we asked for the bill, they just laughed and wished us a good trip. Two people working for about a total of three or four hours! Well, we had no other option than to say thank you and to accept God’s graciousness.
With only a few-hour delay, we were able to catch the ferry to Tallinn in the evening. I enjoyed conversations with John and appreciated how he made all reservations for where we stayed the nights. It was nice not to be alone driving such a long distance.
My fear while driving in foreign countries is being pulled over by the police and then needing to negotiate in a foreign language. Well, soon after crossing the Polish boarder we were pulled over by the police. A friendly officer informed us that I had not paid the road toll on my way north in December. She was right. I had not seen any information about the toll and was not well-informed myself. We agreed to pay the fine and the officer even gave us some sweets to get over the shock of being pulled over.
After I had dropped John off at the airport in Krakow, it started snowing. The snow was coming down quite heavily, but I decided to keep driving. A while later, it became clear that I would have to stop as there were a number of trucks stuck in the snow. I had refuelled not long before, so I wasn’t afraid to park at the side of the road for the night. I had food and there was enough fuel for heat – what else do you need? The next morning everything looked fine as the roads had been cleared well. That evening I arrived safely in Érd feeling quite tired.
