Author: rvingwithapurpose

Friday, September 28, 2018

It was about 61 degrees when we walked a few minutes before we pulled out of the Agricenter RV park at 6:30 this morning. It stayed cool much of the day, but was sunny and warm when we reached Clear Creek Baptist Bible College in Pineville, KY a little before 5:00 pm.

It was and uneventful drive – first through Tennessee fog and then in the beautiful mountains of eastern Kentucky. We will be here a week working with Constructors for Christ on a new facility for New Heights Church with Max’s brother and sister-in-law.

We are thankful for safe travel and pray for safe travel for all our NOMADS.

Thursday, September 27, 2018

We stated the day with more rain. That means it has rained at some point of the day everyday since the annual meeting officially began on Sunday. Fortunately, it was just a fine mist when we were having to walk to the meeting area this morning. The heavy rain came while we were meeting and then there was no rain this afternoon. It has really cooled off. Our low tonight will be 56. That means it will be cool when we are doing our final departure checklist in the morning.

Today was another very busy day, but fun and sad at times too. This morning after 7:00 am Bible study and 8:30 devotion, we had the second half of the business meetings. That meeting ended with the gavel being passed to our new Chairman of the Board, Everett, and the official beginning of Anne, Mike and Carolyn’s four year terms on the board.

This afternoon Anne was in the mood for a break from the meetings and so she attended a line dancing class taught by some fellow NOMADS. That was a first, and she found it to be a lot of fun and good exercise. No problem getting steps today even though we didn’t get to walk this morning due to the rain. Max attended sessions hanging doors and windows and best practices for NOMADS. There was another leader training class this afternoon and tonight we had our closing meal together, barbeque from Corky’s. Very good! And the banana pudding and brownies were pretty awesome, too. Our choir gave a final worship concert after dinner. They did a great job. We have a lot of talent in this group. Then it was time for our last hugs and “see you down the road’s”. Some of our friends we will work with in a few weeks in Lumberton, NC and some we probably will not see until our meeting next year in Illinois. Even though we may be many miles apart, we will hold them in our hearts. Lots more to share but we must be ready to travel early in the morning so we will try to catch up a little later. Safe travels everyone.

Wednesday, September 26, 2018

The rain has continued intermittently the past two days. When you are sure it is over, something else pops up. The quantity hasn’t amounted to much but enough to soak you if you get caught walking up to the meeting area. Temperatures have continued to be really mild. It’s currently 67 and really nice outside tonight.

Yesterday was an extremely busy day and we worked and walked on concrete floor all day. The Love Auction is the biggest way we raise money to give to agencies who need help with materials for projects. Yes, it seems crazy. Members bring items to auction. We register them in and put them out for all the members to pursue. We give everyone bid numbers and have a silent auction. A few items of special interest are held out for the live auction done by an auctioneer member of NOMADS. When we get the count tomorrow, we will have probably have raised over $38,000.00 from our members extravagant generosity. So we spend our own money to pay our expenses to projects and then spend our own money to buy things at the auction to have funds to give away. Some people think we are crazy. We think it is great. The entire amount of money raised by the auction goes to partially fund the materials needed for our various projects. It takes a lot of work to put on the auction, but it’s also lots of fun.

Today everyone paid for and picked up the items they won in the auction. That’s always fun because most of the time on the silent auction, you don’t know until you pay out exactly what you won of what you were placing bids on. We ended the day with a hammock, some home made jelly, salsa, and a drill bit set. One of the things Anne was most pleased about was that a hand crafted wooden bowl, made by Ralph, our deceased World War II fighter pilot friend, brought $550.00. Ralph would be so pleased that it was used to raise money for missions.

Today we also had the first half of the Board report to the membership. After that were the seminars presented for the membership.  In one of the sessions we taught a 1.5 hour class on Disaster Preparedness for RVers.  It was very well received and people stayed after so long we almost missed lunch. We hope it makes a difference in NOMADS members’ readiness for storms. Later in the day, we were taken on a tour of the Agricenter’s facility by a friend of our friend Melody. This is a very interesting place. We will share that information in another post.

Tonight we had a pot luck dinner that was wonderful. Anyone who left hungry has no one to blame but themselves. After dinner Elvis was in the building and sang us a few songs. We also got a nice visit with Pat and Clay, our dear some NOMADS friends from New York, after dinner.

 

Busy days but good days. We are tired!

Monday, September 24, 2018

It rained all night and most of the day. There was water everywhere. There was no walking this morning. There was time today that there was water running through the RV sites to the point some sewer connections were under water. A neighbor with a tow dolly had water half way up the tires. It was some pretty impressive rain. Then late after noon it stopped and the sun was shining brightly. Soon everyone was outside walking and visiting.

Our days at annual meeting begin early. We have Bible study at 7:00. NOMAD Louie Lyon, a retired pastor, is leading the study this year. It is a very good study on what Jesus taught about himself. Louie reminded us that what we understand about Jesus is ever changing. Jesus doesn’t change but as we study his Word and grow in our faith our understanding of His teachings changes and deepens. We must remember we are not all at the same place in our understanding. And that’s okay. After Bible study we have about 30 minutes of singing and gathering together. Then we have a devotion/message, with today’s by another NOMAD, Bill Koch, another retired pastor. Bill, who is also on our Board, did his usual great job, teaching us to “Go where the feet need washing.” We as NOMADS always need to constantly remember that we the hands and feet of Jesus. The term servant sometimes is considered a derogatory label and not something to be desired but we are called to be servants, even if it’s to clean dirty feet – or bathrooms.

After devotion, we assisted in preparing for the auction. We worked on receiving the items people were donating. We have a lot of really nice items to sell. All our items are donated by our members or sometimes agencies were we work or just friends of NOMADS. We aren’t sure of the final count yet because a few items will come in tomorrow but it is around 500 items. Most will be sold through the silent auction but we will also have a live auction tomorrow afternoon. It is always a fun time. Other than getting ready for auction, today was a day of tours and fun. There were Graceland tours, civil rights museum tours, Pink Palace tours, and trips to see the Peabody Hotel ducks. We both worked most of the day. We did get our walking in late this afternoon.

Tonight was movie night and we watched “Secondhand Lions”, of course with popcorn and cookies. If you haven’t watched this one you should. Everyone seemed to have a good time.

Tomorrow should be another very busy but fun day.