Washing Machine Story

[Sam]

A couple of days ago I finished reading a book titled “Liberia Sweet.” It was written by Sam Latta and tells some of his experiences as a missionary for 19 years in Liberia. He went there with his wife and four children whose ages ranged from 5 up to 9. Sam graduated from the Apostolic Bible Institute in St. Paul, MN in 1957. I was there that year but didn’t really know him very well, just that he was from Moline, IL and had a pretty sister named Hilda who was, I think, in the same first year class that I was. There are several good stories in that book but one that I want to pass on is about a washing machine. This is from pages 41 to 44 of the book. Sam’s wife Joyce home schooled the children. A young woman named Mary helped in their home with laundry, cleaning, etc.

Our washing machine is not an automatic. It is a wringer type washer. Joyce taught Mary how to use the washer. She cautioned her of the danger of being careless with the wringer. She instructed her on how to use the emergency trip levers on either side of the wringer. She told Mary, “If any piece of laundry gets caught, and begins to wrap itself around the rollers, hit the trip lever to release the spring tension on the rollers, and shut off the wringer. This will allow one to remove the clothing caught in the rollers. Do not try to pull the article of clothing out of the rollers while they are turning. It can pull your fingers and hand into the rollers. It can injure you badly.”

After these instructions, Mary did very well with the laundry for a long time. One day Mary is doing the laundry and Joyce is having school with the children, when suddenly, a desperate blood chilling scream came from the laundry room. Joyce ran to the laundry room and found a terrified an agonizing Mary with her arm in the washer’s wringer. She had tried to keep some garments from wrapping around the rollers. It caught her fingers and pulled her hand and half of her forearm into that terrible squeeze between those hard rubber rollers. The pain was unbearable. Joyce immediately began to hit the release bars with all her might. After much frantic effort the spring locked rollers broke loose and she was able to get Mary’s arm out of the wringer. Mary is in so much pain. She could not stop crying.

He goes on to tell how they took Mary to one hospital and were sent to another where her arm ws x-rayed. There were no bones broken, just a painful bruise.

He then continues the story:

Now we have a washer with no wringer. A part in the wringer that latched the rollers together broke off. To get a new part, you have to buy a new washing machine. I kept an eye open for a washing machine, but finding one would take a miracle. We made it a matter of prayer that God would help us with this washing machine problem. With six in our family plus Mary, we have a lot of laundry to do.

Jesus works sometimes in very unusual ways. The Liberian Roads Department built a gravel road around the city of Monrovia from the sea to Bushrod Island. It is called the Freeway and a real time saver to get to some parts of the city. I drove it frequently.

A few days after the washer fiasco, I am driving the freeway, and caught quick glimpse of something in the edge of the bush. It was just a flash of something white as I sped by. I saw it again on the return trip. I saw it again on the next day. Every time I drove that route, I saw it. After a couple of weeks it occurred to me, to stop and see what this mysterious object in the edge of the bush might be. I stopped the car and walked down through the ditch and over the graded edge of the road to the white thing that had caught my interest. There it lay on the ground before me. It is a washing machine wringer exactly like ours. It has a problem though. It has been run over by one of the bulldozers and smashed flat. I picked it up and threw it on the ground a few times to dislodge any unwelcome critters that may have found lodging in it. I carried it back to the car and put it in the trunk.

When I got home I took the broken, bent up thing from the car. I found the toolbox and took it apart. To my amazement, there is only one part in it that is not damaged. Can you believe it? The portion left undamaged is the very part I need to fix our washer. I installed the good part in our wringer, and the washer worked perfectly as long as we labored in Liberia. No more wringing clothes by hand.

He then finishes this chapter with the following:

Truly God does love us. He turned the water into wine to save a young couple embarrassment at their wedding feast, when they had run out of refreshment. Jesus has shown us so many times that He cares about the small things that are important to our lives.