A Job Update

As some of you know, GM was going to sell Saturn to Roger Penske, but the deal fell through last week. GM said it would not go back to taking bids and would shut Saturn down. When the news came out, Mr. S (the owner of the local Saturn Retailer) expressed that he would keep his store open as long as he could pay the bills, pulling cars from the other stores to sell. We knew this could mean a few weeks or a few months at most.

J was told yesterday that his Saturn store will be closing no later than the end of the year. It could be much sooner than that, of course.

There is a BMW dealer that has contacted Mr. S about buying the building to move his BMW dealership in. That could hasten the closing.

I believe Mr. S would like to buy another dealer franchise in the area, but there are none available right now. There are rumors that two local owners have been considering selling, though. If that were to happen, he could bring another franchise into the building.

J has been asked if he would be interested in staying with the company if a position were to become available in Harrisburg (Mr. S owns other dealerships). It would be a 45+ minute commute, but he would retain his tenure and benefits. He's been with the company 15 years and they've been good to him. He is valuable with more training, experience, and ASE certifications than other techs.

At this point J plans on riding it out and being "the last one to turn the lights off at Saturn". It brings tears to my eyes thinking about it. He is very sad about the closing. J admired the Saturn car since it came out. He said they were well designed and made logically so they'd be easy to work on, not complicated like other cars. When I saw an ad in the paper that they needed a tech I pushed him to go apply. For some reason, he didn't think he had a chance to get in. I said "This is what you wanted. You have to go." and he finally did. He's been with them 15 of their 19 years. It was sad when GM took over Saturn. The car changed, the company changed. It was built differently and became just like other cars to work on. But the family at the Saturn store remained. We have had good years with them and it will be especially sad for J to see everyone go their separate ways. He has said he's not worried about what comes next, just dissapointed that Saturn will be no more.

J has an idea in his head to open a Saturn service center. There are so many huge things to consider with that, but he says he just can't stop thinking about it. He would be able to buy some of the equipment from the store. We don't know if this is where God is leading, but it's on his mind.

If he stays to the end, J will be "laid off" (if he doesn't/can't go to Harrisburg). He was told that if he comes back to work for the company within a year he will retain his tenure and benefits as they are now.

Thank you for your prayers.

Seventeen Years!

At 7:14 this evening J & I will have been married 17 years. It was a 14 minute service :)

Winning the War Over Worldliness

A great sermon series from James MacDonald. It can be downloaded or listened to free- probably through the weekend.

http://walkintheword.com/Broadcast.aspx halfway down the page.

Two other awesome sermons are Reality Check for Husbands and Reality Check for Wives. So worth the time to listen to. They're $3 for an MP3 download.

http://store.walkintheword.com/p-962-reality-check-for-husbands.aspx

http://store.walkintheword.com/p-961-reality-check-for-wives.aspx