An Angel Appears in Mechanic’s Guise

At Vineyard Christian Fellowship, they call him the Angel Mechanic. Like some prayed-for angelic rescuer, he appears every two months at the church parking lot with tools and oil cans. His mission: to help the single women of the congregation keep their cars running.

“The Lord gave me a skill, and I want to share it,” said Michael Stange, 43, a mechanic and manager of quality assurance at the Metropolitan Transportation Authority in Los Angeles.

On Thursday, Stange appeared on a taped segment of Oprah Winfrey’s show as the daytime talk show host kicked off a feature called “Oprah’s Angel Network.”

“It’s the kind of volunteerism that is often talked about but not always acted on,” said Audrey Pass, a spokeswoman for the show.

Stange’s particular brand of volunteerism began two years ago at the request of Pastor Bob Oliver. “We had some single moms who had car problems,” Oliver recalled. “They didn’t have the money to get them fixed, and they were fearful of going to just any mechanic and being taken advantage of. They didn’t know anything about cars, so they would let things go until they became expensive repairs.”

Oliver asked Stange if he could help, and they organized the church’s first “Single Moms’ Auto Checkup Day.” Six women brought their cars. Later they expanded the service to include all single women at the church. Stange said six to 15 women now come to the checkup days, held behind the church every two months on Saturday mornings.

Armed with tools, rags, pressure gauges, oil and years of experience, Stange gives the cars a once-over. He checks fluid levels, inspects the brakes and looks at the tires. He makes minor adjustments and repairs. If anything major is required, Stange shops around for the garage offering the best deal and makes an appointment. If a woman can’t afford the repairs, a church fund is available to help.

Oliver sees the repair work as part of being a good Christian.

“If Christ were in the world today,” Oliver said, “he would be expressing God’s love in a practical way.”

On a recent Saturday morning, six women availed themselves of the Angel Mechanic’s services.

Jessica Fife knew that the smoke spewing from her car’s exhaust and the difficulty with which the car braked did not bode well.

“Whoa!” the mechanic exclaimed. “You got no oil on the dipstick. Look, you’re running without oil, and you’re running without brakes. I wouldn’t drive it much.”

So Stange promised to make Fife an appointment with a mechanic he knew to be reputable.

“This is awesome,” Fife said before slowly driving away in her squealing Subaru. “I’m gonna take this baby home and park it for a while until I can get it fixed. This is a major blessing.”

Laura Stone brought in the 1984 Nissan Sentra she recently purchased. “I had been putting all the oil in the wrong places,” she later said. “I was putting the oil for the engine in the power steering.”

Julie Keating, head of the church’s single parents ministry, brought in her 1986 Toyota Corolla with a leaking wheel cylinder and faulty rear brakes. She said another mechanic wanted $500 for the repairs. “He [Stange] told me a place that he thought would be reputable and said it would cost about $70,” Keating said.

Recently Oliver decided to expand the program to include at least some married women. “Most married ladies have husbands who can figure out how to do these things,” he said, “but I said at church, if you are married to a mechanical klutz, you can bring your car in.”

And the mechanical klutzes themselves? “No, we haven’t invited them to come in, although we certainly could handle it,” the pastor said. “Most guys would probably be embarrassed to bring their cars in. We will have to put it in guy-friendly language. We won’t call them mechanical klutzes.”