Dad rolling the dozer!

From Mom:

"The end of December, 2000, Roy was clearing a piece of land on the farm for Kim and Ken to build a new house. The ground was frozen and Roy did not take this into consideration when he got too close to a bank and the bulldozer tracks did not take a footing in the dirt and the dozer starter to turn over on the steep ground. Roy knew he was in trouble. There was no way he could get off the dozer without being crushed so he just grabbed hold of the breather on the hood of the dozer with both arms locked round it and held on for dear life. The dozer turned over three times before it came to a halt in an almost dry creek bed at the bottom of the hill. When the dozer landed it was on its tracks again and continued to run, taking off down the creek bed. Roy said all he could do was “Praise the Lord.” The dozer had only minor damage and Roy was just bruised up and sore for a week or so.

Another thing that saved his life was the bulldozer had a roll cage on it. Russ Vannoy had spent evenings for a week, after he and Roy got off work, helping Roy build this roll cage. Russ did all the welding. Roy said he was the best around and remembered his friend Russ as he was praising the Lord for saving his life.

We were scheduled to leave on January 12, 2001 for a Work and Witness trip to Peru. This had been a dream we had had for many years. I had retired on January 1, 2001 and this had been planned since the summer before. If Roy had been seriously injured, we would have had to cancel the trip. This was a “work” and witness trip and Roy had to be in good shape to be able to handle the work that was going to be done for a church in Lima, Peru. It was just another trick of the devil for us not to get to go, but the Lord was in control and we went and were blessed beyond anything that we could have imagined.

After Roy’s recent accident of turning the lawnmower over on him, his nephew Raymond said, “You’ve turned over a backhoe, rolled a dozer and turned over a farm tractor and you walked away, but you let a little lawnmower get you down." Roy could only smile, because he knew it was so true."