Month: March 2017

Monday, March 13, 2017

Hope everyone has had a wonderful Monday. It sure was hard to get up this morning but we were good and did get up early enough to do our exercise. We will be having our daily devotions and breaks in James Hall on the Murphy Harpst Children’s Center (MHCC) campus. It’s convenient since we will also be remodeling the second floor of that building. The first floor has the infirmary and third floor is used to house visitors such as the students from Appalachian State that are here for their spring break alternative this week. The second floor was most recently used as dorm space for some of the male residents. With the completion of a new dorm, we will now remodel this space to be used by some of the administrative staff.

After our devotion, we first took a tour of the campus, so those who had never been here could get oriented and so those of us who had worked here before could see the changes. In the rec center, we loved the new art work on the ceiling tiles of the workout room and art room. Some previous students at Appalachian State worked with the kids on the tiles. We also had to go be the administration building to officially sign in on campus. It was a cold, messy morning for a walk around campus but it was good to see what they were doing with areas where we had previously worked. This is our third project at MHCC and this place has a special place in our hearts. The staff here does a wonderful work with these young people.

Back in James Hall the new CEO, Scott Merritt, joined us during our break to update us on MHCC. The facility was originally a Methodist orphanage and now is a residential treatment center for some of Georgia’s most viciously abused and neglected children, still associated with the Methodist Church. Over the past year, MHCC has had 50 vacancies (they are licensed for 75 children) and unfortunately they received over 1000 referrals for children needing those 50 beds. We will share more about this wonderful facility another day.

Back at work, we started the demolition process. We first moved a lot of beds and other furniture from the rooms then started taking cabinets off the walls. Demolition day is always fun but tiring. It’s quite physical. We did not complete the demo but did make a good start today. Can’t believe we still haven’t gotten the bikes on the Silver Comet Trail. Maybe soon.

Sunday, March 12, 2017

So, did everyone get to church on time today?? We lost 2 hours in 2 days coming from central time zone and then going on daylight saving time, so we are feeling it today. So 5:30 in the morning will be like 3:30 was last week at home.

Ouch!! It would be bad to be late for our first day at work. Maybe we will skip the exercise in the morning and sleep a little later.  We had snow and sleet in the early morning hours but certainly nothing like they had just a little further north.

It was cold and gray most of the day with occasional welcome periods of sunshine. Just before dark the clouds totally cleared and we have a star filled sky tonight. Think the lack of clouds means an even colder morning tomorrow. Yep, we left a lot of our really warm work clothes at home. Took them to Oklahoma and it was 70 degrees. Left the at home this time and of course, it turns cold. Hopefully it won’t last very many days or these folks are going to get tired of seeing us in the same warm clothes.

Today we visited Marietta Street United Methodist Church and enjoyed a great service and a very warm welcome. It’s a pretty little church with this neat brick cross in the sidewalk out front. The pastor’s name is Bobby Church, Pastor Church. He had a wonderful message on how Jesus is our way out of the dark cave of despair. He is our hope and salvation. We visited Marietta Street last year for Easter Sunrise Service and breakfast afterward. It was so good to see the people again.

After worship, of course, we all went out for Sunday lunch. It was very good and the visiting and catching up with old friends was great. There is always so much laughter when we are with our NOMADS friends. When we got home we had another roundup of the cows to try to keep them away from the motor homes.

Tonight we had our first official team meeting at Jim and Mary Jo’s. Of course we began with introductions although most of us have worked together on other projects. We got to know Richard a little better. He is the only person we haven’t worked with before and he will be on our Sumatanga project next period. We are going to be taking down some walls, tearing out a kitchen and putting up some other walls. We think it is turning older dorm space into administrative space but we will learn more tomorrow and it will all be good. Hope everyone has a great Monday.

Saturday, March 11, 2017

Today we had a much needed quiet morning. There was some clean up work to be done around the campground and some fire wood to cut (and calves to chase back to their pasture). Later we made a quick grocery store run. Then there were several hours doing book work and tax returns and working on some other projects. Shelia and Frank arrived safely this afternoon. It was great to see them again. We last saw them at Vashti Center in Thomasville, GA in the fall of 2015. They have spent the winter in Florida and are working their way back north. Later we all went out to dinner. We first tried to go to the Pizza Farm, out in the middle of no where near Rockmart, GA. We thought we were going early – 5:00.  They don’t open until 4:30.  The parking lot was completely full and when we checked in it was going to be a one hour wait.  We decided to try somewhere else and went to El Nopal Mexican restaurant back in Rockmart. We were very pleased. The food and service were good even with 10 people and it was very reasonably priced. We wouldn’t mind going back there because there were several more items we would like to try. Sorry we forgot to take our phones, so no pictures of food or the group. We can’t remember when we ever left both phones at home. Fortunately, there were no messages of missed calls then we returned. Guess we are getting old. It is very cold tonight – with some of the white stuff in the forecast, but we really don’t expect any travel problems. Hope you are having a nice weekend and check back tomorrow. We will try to have some pics – maybe of some of the white stuff? Don’t forget to be in prayer for your churches and pastors. Later.

Friday, March 10, 2017

Sorry to leave you hanging, but this was a very busy week. After dentist visits Monday, Anne left at 4:30 Tuesday morning for Atlanta to be with her brother Jim and sister-in-law Marguerite who was having a procedure on her kidneys. Traffic was horrible! Max stayed in Alabama to take his Aunt Helen for some skin cancer surgery. Wednesday morning Anne drove home and took Juno to have some GI testing done. Thursday we drove to Tuscaloosa to see Anne’s Mom and back to Trussville to see Aunt Jean. That brings us to today. Whew!

Today we awoke early to a beautiful spring day. We enjoyed looking out at the trees and bushes putting on blossoms and new leaves. We got everything (we hope) loaded into FRED by about 10:00, stopped by Helen’s to check her surgery site (looks great). While there we picked a few of this spring’s last jonquils to take with us.

Then we headed to Cedartown, GA about 10:45. We stopped in Allgood to top off on fuel since we don’t like to park FRED for 3 weeks with less than ½ tank of diesel. Cedartown is only about a 90 mile drive. The storms from last night were gone and it was a beautiful day to drive the state highways. It was a bit windy at times. Our team leader had asked those that could to arrive on Friday rather than Saturday to help clean up the campground. When we arrived almost everyone was here. It was so great to see Jim and Mary Jo our team leaders, Janet and Harry, and Joyce and Ken. We also met Richard briefly. Sheila and Frank should arrive tomorrow. This should be such a fun project because we already know and love everyone. It’s also going to be a good deal of demolition which is also fun. After getting FRED set up, we started visiting and getting caught up with everyone. Good times.! The campground is right beside the Silver Comet Trail and we will probably be riding on it tomorrow. We look out our front windshield and can see people riding by on the trail. Between the campground and the trail is a pasture for cows – and deer and turkey. Well today the cows preferred being with us rather than in their pasture so we had a round up to get them back in their pastures. Of course, when the young ones can step back into the pasture thru the barbed wire fence rather than going thru the gate we suspect that keeping then away from the campsites may be a lost cause. The owners did return later in the afternoon to work on the fence so maybe we won’t wake up to lots of surprises left for us to step in in the morning. For supper we had a fire and grilled some sliders, and had beans, black beans and rice, chips, salsa, brownies, ice cream, s’mores (made with peeps), and probably other things we are too stuffed to remember. Anyway, it’s wonderful to be back at the Cedartown’s Murphy Harpst Children’s Center and we look forward to accomplishing a lot for them.