September 2020 – RVing With a Purpose

♫ Going to the Chapel … ♫

Wednesday, September 30, 2020

Since there is a wedding scheduled for Friday at the chapel on the mountain above Sumatanga, our priority today was to clean up that area. No one has been to the top of the mountain since March so everything was very overgrown. There were downed trees blocking the two-track gravel road. There were many branches leaning out over the road. You could not get through without them rubbing against your vehicle. Dead branches were on the ground, as well as all the grass being extremely tall and thick. It looked very overwhelming as we drove in off the main road. Our first assessment was it was at least a 3-4 day task and we only had two days. It was really sad to see the camp in such a state. After a few moments of looking around and shaking our heads, we just got to work. We had nine NOMADS plus Stephen, the maintenance department, helping. Two NOMADS stayed at camp to continue the painting. By this afternoon the place was transformed. Totally amazing! We will still have a little work to do tomorrow when we take the tables and chairs up the mountain. Everything is looking so nice and the view from the Chapel down into the valley is just as beautiful as ever. We are very tired tonight.

The lake during our morning walk

Clearing trees from the roadway between the chapel and the parking area

Cutting up a tree that had fallen in the parking area

It Rained. We Painted.

Tuesday, September 29, 2020

Yep. That’s what we did today. If you want to know a little more, it began raining last night. It stopped raining about 10:00 AM. We began cleaning the walls of a cabin at pool camp at 8:30 and began painting after lunch. We have completed about ½ of the painting. There was lots of laughing and lots accomplished today.

First Work Day of the Project

Monday, September 28, 2020

What a wonderful fall day we had today! There was a breeze most of the day. The sun was shining brightly. It was still a typical humid Alabama day so it was a little hot when we were working hard but such a wonderful day. This project will be different from all the others at Sumatanga. Don’t guess we should expect anything else since it’s 2020. This year we will not have a “major” project. We will be working around the camp trying to help catch up some of the routine work. Most of the staff has been furloughed due to COVID and no events taking place at the camp and only one person working in maintenance so there is much to be done. Today we worked in the day use area around the lake and campground cutting grass, picking up limbs, trimming trees and shrubs. That area of the campus already looks so much better. We all enjoyed working outside together. It’s going to be a fun week.

Mary Ann mowed until Phil got the mower, then she helped trim around trees.

Phil cutting brush from around trees. He also spent a good part of the day mowing.

Jodi and Stel picked up a lot of limbs and sticks.

Pulling down a broken tree limb that was a hazard to anyone walking near the tree

Gene spent most of the day on the skid steer. Here he is smoothing out a driveway.

While Karla and Anne were emptying trash cans they found the signatures of some of our friends who built the trash can enclosures.

It’s Going To Be Fun

Sunday, September 27, 2020

This has been a busy week. Monday and Tuesday were spent with the surveyor. We have someone that wants to purchase Max’s grandmothers house and surrounding land. We will be keeping a portion out to have a place to park Fred if the need every arises. One thing 2020 has taught us is that life can certainly take strange turns. Of course, we also had all the mail to open and handle, bills to pay for the Aunts, etc. And laundry to do and Anne is still working on items that came up at the board meeting. Wednesday was shopping day, restocking the refrigerator and fresh produce. That took a while. We were getting pretty low on groceries. Thursday we cooked, preparing things for the freezer to be ready for our next project and Friday we prepared to move to Camp Sumatanga. We moved on Saturday and were excited to see our NOMADS friends. Gary and Sharon, our leaders, were there to greet us. Gene and Mary Ann arrived just before us and Stel and Jodi arrived later in the afternoon. We have worked with all these wonderful NOMADS on many projects and they are just the best. After so many months with no projects it’s great to be with our old friends.

We must have parked on an ant hill because almost immediately after getting set up at Sumatanga we were invaded by ants. We put some Terro down on some painter’s tape and this is what it looked like a little while later.

And this is what it looked like 24 hours later

We went back to Lester Memorial UMC for church today. We are very thankful for the live stream services when were are away from home but it’s so great to be able to attend in person with social distancing and masks. After lunch Phil and Mary and Carla joined us at Sumatanga. Phil and Mary are from PA and Karla from Birmingham by way of Sedona, AZ. All three are new NOMADS. This is their second project and they just happened to work their first project together a few weeks ago at Ten Sleep in WY. They didn’t know each other until that time and Phil and Mary were planning to stay out west but the smoke and fires pushed them this way. So glad to have them with us! We had our opening meeting tonight and we are now all old friends already. This should be a really fun three weeks.

Today’s early service at Lester Memorial UMC

New team at Sumatanga