~ The Five Dollar Gift

A long time ago when $5 gifts still had value as well as meaning, I received one from a very special friend who I was not to see again. At the time I had no idea that we might not cross paths again.
The year was 1970; I had just received my news of my impending call-up into the army, with the very real possibility of being sent to Vietnam. I had just spent the longest part of almost six months working in a bank which I knew I wasn’t going back to afterwards so I just quit.
I had it worked out that if the Government had it hooks into my body for the next two years, before that happened I wanted to choose to do something for my God, after all who knew what my future held. So that said, I walked into my Church Mission Board and volunteered
I’m not whether it was shades of Huck Finn or some of the classic old Road Movies in just a short space in time a few friends and I separated on the edge of Melbourne. They back to their nice warm beds and me to Western Australia. We had a word of prayer on the roadside, appropriate for the tale, but before she left Rosemary slipped into my hand a $5 note with the words ”just in case”.
Now at the time I thought that I had it fairly together while I had been getting everything sorted. I had also been gathering travelling provisions together and they were on my back. Financially I had the payout from the bank for my services and I was about to take on the adventure of the Great treeless Plain hitchhiking no drama there, not in 1970.
But that is just the start of the story, the value of the gift was not in the money, it merely started there. You see I had used my head, I had figured out what I would probably need to get me to Perth, and then on to Mogumber, just a little north of Perth. God used that five dollar note to teach me some lessons that have stayed with me.
I thought I had it worked out even the Great Treeless Plain was without interest. I think I slept through most of it however just over the border into WA in a town called Norseman there was a Police Car just waiting for my travelling mates. One had jumped bail while the other had borrowed his mother’s car to drive to Adelaide and bring his bud back. Not surprisingly his mother reported the car stolen. The officer having told me of this tale of woe, turned to me, looked me up and down and asked “so what is your story?” He was less than impressed when I said I was on my way to a Mission Station and asked for proof. Well remember I had figured it all out before I left. I had a Letter of Introduction from the Melbourne office to the Perth office stashed in my back pack. “Mmm he says how much money do you have?” I had no idea, so out came the wallet and all I could find was a Five Dollar note, her gift.
During my life time that story has provided a treasure trove of lessons for me in the first instant it was that we make the plans but that is no guarantee of success. When we rely on God He matures the plan success completely. My friend the officers last words for me where “on your way if you did not have that letter AND the five dollars you would in the back of the van with those other two.
I arrived in Perth with one hour to spare. There was a work party travelling to Mogumber that afternoon and I had a seat on the bus with them organized, that is something I couldn’t have planned but God did