Author: rvingwithapurpose

Sunday, August, 18, 2019

There were again some storms predicted overnight but we didn’t get much rain and no storms. It has been cool, cloudy and windy all day. We actually wore long sleeves today. We will happily take long sleeves over the 98 degrees we saw predicted for home today. We are actually seeing changes in the leaves already. Nothing dramatic, but early changes. Interesting too is that the kids don’t start back to school here until after Labor Day. I guess they have so little summer they want to take advantage of it all. They are still talking about the minus 45 degree days they had last winter. They don’t get snow days here but they do get cold days when everyone stays home when the temperature is below minus 35. That is just so foreign to someone from the Alabama.

At the gathering before church this morning our chef had big, luscious fresh hot cinnamon rolls. Probably the best cinnamon rolls we have ever eaten. If not best they at least tie any cinnamon rolls we ate on our Alaska trip. For those that didn’t follow that adventure, we ate cinnamon rolls there and back and selected a champion at the end of the trip.

Pastor Deb started a new sermon series this week titled “My Big Fat Mouth” with today’s message being “My Big Fat Mouth – Complaining” and upcoming sermons on gossip, lying, etc. She reminded us of Exodus 16:8, “..You are not grumbling against us, but against the Lord.” We all need to recite Psalm 103:2-5 more often, “Let all that I am praise the Lord, may I never forget the good things he does for me.”

This afternoon Anne worked on paperwork, and Max did some work with Norm on the new bathrooms at the church. The ladies of the church fed us another wonderful meal and we had our team meeting. We are ready to start another week of work trying to help people return to their homes.

Saturday, August 17, 2019

Today was a beautiful day in our part of Wisconsin. It was 58 degrees when we woke this morning to a sunny sky. Since we did not have any team members arriving today, we took the day off. We got our walking in before breakfast and after breakfast decided to head out to explore our area.

We see numerous sandstone buttes and mesas as we drive around the area. Everything is very flat and green and then there is this big rock formation sticking up. We have talked and laughed about these formations since our arrival. Today we decided to go to Mill Bluff State Park which is an “ice age national scientific reserve” and only 11 miles from Winding Rivers. We planned to do some hiking and learn more about this geology.  Just as we were entering the park, Max looked into our rear view mirror and saw our team members Stel and Jodi and two other NOMADS, Gary and Avis behind us.  Didn’t expect that.  With the park’s big title designation, we expected exhibits, and lots of information. We were somewhat underwhelmed by the hiking and education. We did get some good exercise climbing to the top of one of the buttes. However, the park is beside I-90 and rather than a peaceful, quiet state park, there was interstate noise everywhere we went. There were no exhibits and we found one small handout with a map on one side and about 6 paragraphs about the formations and the scientific reserve designation. We hiked the nature trail, climbed the one butte and then decided to move on to something else.

In looking at what else was in the area, we found the Necedah (neh-CEE-duh) National Wildlife Refuge which is about 17 miles north of New Lisbon. The refuge welcome center was very well done. Beautiful building and helpful staff. There are numerous trails and wild life viewing areas. We did the one mile loop trail at the visitors center and then drove to Sprague and hiked in that area of the refuge. Beautiful day to be out in nature listening the frogs, and birds. We saw 3 gorgeous swans peacefully swimming on Sprague Pool along with sandhill cranes, Canada geese, great blue herons and other birds.

After leaving the refuge we drove to Tomah and on the way drove through an area of a lot of cranberry bogs. Wisconsin is the number one producer of cranberries in the world. There is a big harvest festival in September and we would love to be here for the harvest in late Sept and October, but we will have moved on by then. We did learn a lot more about the bogs and growing cranberries. Interesting. In Tomah, we bought a saw blade, bought some groceries and of course got some ice cream. You can’t hike seven miles without having ice cream. It was a good day!

Other car-trapping sights we saw today:

Friday, August 16, 2019

It rained a lot during the night last night and on into this morning. By mid-morning the rain was over and it was a beautiful afternoon and evening.

One of the team members made an agreement with the pastor at Winding Rivers to work on an addition to the what will one day be the new church. It is currently the dorm space for volunteers. They are adding some bathrooms that will first be used by the volunteers and then by the church. It will also include a kitchen. This was all started prior to our arrival and is totally outside of NOMADS. Norm works on this project after hours. This morning Max and a few other team members and church members also did some work on the addition, while Anne did some work inside FRED.

We then drove around New Lisbon a bit and ran some errands. There is just not much in New Lisbon. We headed back to the church in time to say goodbye to our departing NOMADS, Tom and Jenny. We really enjoyed getting to know them and will see them in Michigan in a few weeks. Just a little while later, our new couple, Gary and Nancy arrived from Georgia. It’s great to see them again. Tomorrow since we don’t have anyone else coming in we will see what tourist things we can do. Hope everyone has a great weekend.

Thursday, August 15, 2019

Today was a beautiful sunny day. We had a cool start, 54 degrees, but it warmed up to 76 this afternoon. What great weather for working!

This morning our new NOMAD Harry had devotion. He used a devotion book titled Daily Word and our word for today was Faith with scripture from Hebrews and James. He ended with the thought provoking question: “Do you really believe or just believe that you believe?” Thanks so much for sharing, Harry.

After devotion, Anne and Jenny went to Teresa’s to texture the walls. That job took a couple hours and hopefully Teresa will be happy with the walls when she comes home tonight. That completes what we can do at Teresa’s until she gets her painting done. Then we will plan to return to install the trim. After cleaning up Anne and Jenny headed to Elroy, back to Rhonda’s. After devotion, Harry took Max to Rhonda’s along with Tom, Norm, Stel and Jodi. They worked on completing the doors and jams, baseboards along with installing the lock sets and a lot of cleanup. Later in the day Stel and Jodi went back to Nate’s and later were joined by Harry and even later Max. After Anne and Jenny arrived at Rhonda’s they did a lot of touch up of paint and stain, along with some cleaning, installing switch plates. The closet rod and shelf were also installed. At the end of the day the two bedrooms and bathroom were ready on schedule. Rhonda and Denise are planning to move in this weekend. The remainder of the house will be worked on over time. We may be back there at some point. Back at Nate’s there was continued work on the floor joists and subfloor as well as capping off additional plumbing that won’t be used any more. A lot was accomplish this week. It was a good week and we thank God for another week of being the hands and feet of Jesus.

Tonight Roxy and the church ladies prepared us another great meal. BBQ chicken with Roxy’s homemade sauce, potato salad, grape salad and brownies for dessert. Wonderful!