Remember Huckleberry?

Some of you may remember a post this past fall about a bike named "Huckleberry" that Andrea and I and Krassi (and Reuben) all had a chance to test ride when we were in getting Reuben set for ordering his new bike for next summer.  It is the bike that was in the TV show "Ride Across America" a couple of years ago.

Last fall after this meeting we decided that even though we really wanted to be able to get all of us out biking next summer, that we could not justify the cost of a new bike like Huckleberry.  The bike had so many good qualities to it.  Primarily it would give Krassi good therapeutic use of his legs and his pedals could be in "constant cadence" with mine.  Secondly it would allow our whole family to bike next summer as I could have Krassi in front on the bike with me and also be able to pull Reuben's bike/trailer combo behind.  Andrea could pull Rinnah and Evania in our double trailer and Owen and Leah can ride their own bikes.  Lastly, it would allow Andrea and me to take any one of the other kids that would like to ride with us on a ride sometime or possibly even allow Andrea and I to go out for a ride together on our own if we could find someone to watch all the kids! (Andrea is proofing this before it goes up, and is thinking, "ha!")

That said, we decided at that time that the best option was probably to look at a larger special needs trailer that would be far less expensive (think less than 10% of the cost of a Huckleberry-esque bike).  The upside is that we would all be able to go out biking together, but it would not have any of the other benefits listed above.  But, it would be an option that would work and perhaps sometime in the future we could look into a bike for Krassi again.

In the days after we made that decision, I remember toying with the thought of asking the owner of the bike shop if he would be willing to sell Huckleberry to us at a discounted price.  However, after talking with Andrea about it, we decided not to pursue that option as we knew that he had a very strong emotional connection to the bike because of its history. That wasn't just any old floor model.

Fast forward a few months to this past Wednesday when I got a call from the shop owner asking if we would be interested in Huckleberry at a discounted rate.  He relayed that the manufacturer of the bike has made enough changes to the 2016 model that they do not want their dealers carrying older style demo bikes any longer.  As such, he needs to pass the bike along and he wanted to check with us first out of the three people/families that had expressed interest in that type of bike.  So...we will get the bike for 1/3 the cost of a new bike plus some additional costs to modify the bike to work for Krassi (but we would have had those expenses even if we had purchased a new bike).  We are VERY excited.

This email from Andrea's Dad in response to my email to him letting him know about the bike captures it for me...

The ease with which God gets things done is amazing. Hmm, how to get a better price on the bike. That's easy. Just get the manufacturer to cone out with a new model and make him think he needs to dump inventory. He doesn't even break a sweat.
And because you weren't worried about it, you get a great present.
God is very good.

We are completely overwhelmed at God's goodness.  I was getting choked up in my throat and could feel the tears starting to well up in my eyes when I was writing the email to Andrea's parents.  We had already moved on from the idea of getting this bike for Krassi and our family, but God apparently had not. There are times when God's goodness, in the face of our complete unworthiness, blows me away.