I have mentioned in this space many other times, that I am very thankful my Dad taught me to work. He absolutely loves to work and he tried his best to instill that love for work in me. I did not love it then, but I am extremely thankful for it now.
Dad was an electrician in factories most of his working life. He also wired houses and took care of a man's rent houses and did a lot of maintenance for two small factories near our home. He took me and my brother Steve with him on these and other side jobs from the time we were very small.
He also raised two 100 acre gardens (Not really 100 acres at all) and always had something going in the yard, the garden, the house or the barn. It seemed to me that we were always working.
I would rather have stayed in bed. I would rather have not been in those cold factories in the winter. I would rather not crawl in a narrow crawl space. I would have rather been fishing or swimming in the summer.
As I said, I did not love it then, but I am extremely thankful for it now.
I can not tell you how many times I could not get something done as an adult. I could not do it. I did not have the knowledge. I did not have the strength. But I did it anyway, because Dad instilled that in me!
I am not only thankful that Dad taught me to work, but I am thankful he taught me about his work, electrical. I had no idea how much I was picking up through the years.
I say that I got it through osmosis.😁
Dad was busy and working too fast to explain everything he was doing, but I watched him for years, handing him tools, screws, wire nuts, breakers, conduit and wire. The knowledge and technic oozed into me without me knowing it.
After KJo and I married I worked for an electrical contractor for three months before I was hired on at GM. I was not running jobs by any means, but I could do anything I was asked to do.
To my surprise, I knew the hot wire, the neutral wire and the ground wire. I could strip wire, use wire nuts, wire switches, receptacles and lights. I was blown away when I figured out how to wire a three way switch.
Most of my three months with that contractor were spent on a commercial job pulling wire through conduit, wiring up lights, receptacles and switches. I was pleasantly surprised that I could do it. The lead man showed me how they wanted it done and I did it.
A few years later I was helping a church on a remodel project and they needed a subpanel installed about 50' from the main panel. I asked my Dad a few code questions and then I did it. I could hardly believe that I wired up the whole panel and all the circuits running from the new panel.
In the years that followed, I wired whole houses, wired for remodeled houses and changed a lot of fuses boxes to breaker boxes all over Dayton. All of this was possible because my Dad took me to work and took me to work and took me to work when I really did not want to go at all.
Now, let me bring in the providence of God.
Could God have been working in those cold factories and houses in the winter? Could God have been working in those hot jobs in the summer when I would have rather been swimming?
I absolutely believe God was working!
The knowledge and skills that I learned "by accident" when I was a child and teenager have proved to be absolutely invaluable in our last twenty years on the road.
I have no idea how in the world I would be an evangelist with a truck and trailer or bus IF I did not know what I know about electrical work. It would be mighty inconvenient, that is for sure!
I can not tell you how many times I have wired temporarily into panels all over this country so we could have 50 amps for a week of revival. In our previous RVs, having 50 amps was a luxury. With the BoggsMobile, having 50 amps is a necessity!
This is a 50 amp box with a pigtail that I have wired temporarily into churches for 20 years. I keep all the breakers I might need and wire in easy-peazy because of the providence of God!
I lost count years ago of how many 50 amp plugs I have permanently installed on the side of churches in America. The number is in the dozens.
I have also made sure that hundreds of 50 amp plugs were correctly wired and averted a lot of trouble because of the knowledge God imparted to me through my Dad by osmosis!😍
There are a lot of things that I do not know about electrical work. I would be lost in most commercial work and all industrial work, but I am thanking God today for providentially using my Dad and all those jobs that I did not want to be on, to give me the basic knowledge to survive and even thrive.
Thank you, Dad! Thank you, God!
Thank you for joining us today. Can you look around your life and see things God providentially used to help you that you did not enjoy at the time?
Davy
