Author: rvingwithapurpose

Friday, September 8, 2017

Everything we said about the beauty of yesterday – repeat today! We had a nice long walk this evening as it started cooling off. Everyone is out walking and visiting in our nice little community here at Camp Red Bay. Interesting dynamics with 100 rigs and close to 200 people. No one knew anyone here until we arrived. Now it really is a caring community with everyone cheering for you when you get to take your rig into service. One of the people we talked to when we arrived Sunday and told about NOMADS joined this week!

Strange to have such perfect weather here knowing what is brewing in the Atlantic. We are so concerned about all the people trying to evacuate Florida. We had several more come in today that were so tired from the long drive in horrible traffic and so relieved to have a place to stay. Some people whose work was completed today couldn’t find anywhere with sites available and we were able to connect them to Camp Sumatanga. Sumatanga is allowing evacuees to stay at no charge. Thanks, Sumatanga. As soon as someone left today their site was taken by a new arrival, usually from Florida.

We did get to take FRED in for service at 7:00 this morning. Our two techs were so nice, polite and knowledgeable. They did a great job and completed all but one of our items which will be done Monday morning at 7:00 am. They even did some things that they noticed that we didn’t have on our list. They really tried to be sure everything was just right. We so appreciate their professional attitude. We were not happy with our dealer when we took FRED back there. The problem that the techs will be repairing Monday is one that was incorrectly repaired and made worse by the dealer. We will not be allowing anyone but Tiffin and Freightliner to work on FRED in the future unless it is some kind of emergency. The people here are so good and so nice. It’s been a pleasure to be here even though we have had a little wait.

For lunch today we went to a little locally owned cafe, The Mason Jar on Main.  We met the owners who seem like such a sweet couple.  Anne had on a Sumatanga shirt and the lady owner immediately said “I’ve been to Sumatanga.”  Both of the owners have done Emmaus walks there.  Everyone one was so attentive and nice.  The food was good.  We had the grilled chicken salad, but then sort of spoiled our healthy eating by having their appetizer of fried green tomatoes.  They were worth it.  Then we really spoiled it by sharing a mason jar hot fudge sundae.  It was really worth it! Sooo good.  The owner’s son, Bryson, is currently deployed with the National Guard, and we would ask that you join us in praying for his and his entire unit’s safety.

 

Tomorrow we will be heading back to Tuscaloosa to move furniture to Mama Ruby’s new room at assisted living. We think she will be so much happier in her new larger room. After that we will head back to Blount County to pick up tools and other items we need before we leave for Amana Colony, Iowa, then back to Red Bay. It will be a LONG day. We will rest Sunday!

Praying for everyone’s safety from the storm. Be careful. Be smart. Have as good a weekend as possible in light of the destruction that is headed for the southeast US.

Thursday, September 7, 2017

Today was just about as beautiful fall morning as there ever is in Alabama. It was 52 degrees when we got up this morning and we used our fireplace heater for the first time. It warmed the coach up nicely, but of course it had some help from the beautiful sunshine as well. The entire day was beautiful. We had to have long sleeves this morning, then short sleeves by about 11:00 and now we are back in jackets again.

We again today didn’t make it into a bay for them to start working on Fred. However, that left us with lots of time for walking and explaining what NOMADS is (people ask about the magnetic signs on the truck) and visiting with our neighbors. There are a lot of very nice and interesting people here. We did one other interesting thing. In the material the camp hosts gave us Sunday was a Guest Guide with information on the area and different restaurants, etc. In that guide was an ad for Piggly Wiggly grocery store that advertised their “World Famous Deli”. Well we couldn’t pass up trying a “World Famous Deli” if for no other reason than to let our readers in on the place. Who knows when you might be passing through Red Bay, Alabama and we wouldn’t want you to miss out on this attraction. It seems that fried chicken is one of their specialties along with lots of fresh vegetables and other entree choices. We were surprised to see the seating area quite full. We were planning to take our lunch back to FRED anyway. To be perfectly honest, lunch was good, but “world famous”? However, their Bavarian cream long johns are very good! By the way, there is also an Ace Hardware inside the Piggly Wiggly in case you need to pick up some screws when you are here.

 

The campground remains completely full. We now have a lot of Floridians here who have run from Irma and plan to spend their time getting their coach repaired while having to be out of Florida anyway. We understand from several people who arrived today that Tiffin was not surprised by this influx of Floridians. Tiffin also knows from the phone calls they have received that there are a number of people from South Carolina headed this way as well. However, with the large number of people here and at the other campgrounds in Red Bay there is now as much as a two week wait for the folks that arrived today. The great news for us is that they will start working on Fred at 7:00 in the morning. We don’t really expect them to get everything done tomorrow, but by Monday we expect to be ready to head to Iowa for our annual national meeting of the NOMADS. Of course between now and then there will be two more trips to Tuscaloosa and one back to Blount County. All will be good!

Wednesday, September 06, 2017

Today was a waiting day for Max and a busy day for Anne. FRED did not get called in for service, but one of us had to be there just in case. Anne drove to Tuscaloosa for help her mother get ready to move into a larger apartment at the assisted living facility. Nothing very “blog-worthy.”

So, another flashback – this time to this day (more or less) in 2015.

We worked a NOMADS project from August 23rd to September 11th that year at the Midwest Mission Distribution Center (MMDC) in Chatham, IL. MMDC has many missions. Click on their name back there to find out more about them. NOMADS usually work two projects a year there. The project listing almost always indicates that we will be building desks for shipment to mission schools around the world. However, we always do much more. We have worked there twice and Anne has built a desk or two, but Max has mostly worked on building a new warehouse.  Anne worked on building the warehouse in 2016.   In 2015, we also helped build a new bike repair shop.

 

Some of you have probably heard us talk about Mary Alice Collins.  MMDC is where we met Mary Alice in 2015 and the first Wednesday of the 2015 project was the day her battle with sepsis began.  As an update, she miraculously survived, and is now walking on two prosthetic legs, using prosthetic hands and since winning the battle with sepsis she is also an ovarian cancer survivor.  And she has won many ribbons for her baked goods at the Indiana State Fair each year since. BTW, she, a number of years previous, also survived breast cancer.  A true inspiration to us all.

 

Tuesday, September 5, 2017

We were up early this morning because we didn’t know when Norris, the gentleman who is our point of contact for service, would be around to review our work list. We knew that generally he goes around and meets with people in the order you check in the campground. He starts about 7:00 am we think. So he comes around and talks to you a little and gives you some idea as to when you will be in and out. Norris didn’t get to us until late morning. We told him that we really needed to return to Blount County for Wess’s funeral. Norris made a call to someone and told us that he didn’t think we would be moved to a bay this afternoon. “Go.” he said. “Just go now.” So we did. He asked us what our plans were and we told him we needed to be headed to Iowa Monday and he didn’t act like that was a problem so we will see. We are fully prepared to return for another visit when we will be home for a while in November/December. As we said yesterday, while we have about 15 individual items on our list, they are mostly small items of a cosmetic nature and some are simply questions. For example there is a spot on the bathroom floor that appears to be some caulk or construction cement type thing but we don’t know what is safe to use to remove it.

Today was cloudy, with intermittent rain. We drove through one nasty storm on the way to the funeral. It was one of the “go slow and turn your flashers” on type of storms. We are thankful for safe travel today. We saw so many people at the funeral. The Hallman family is a large family, and most are still in the general area, so it was a family reunion of sorts. It was good to see everyone, just not for the reason. Wess (Rev. John Wesley Hallman, Jr) was the oldest of five brothers. From the stories we heard, those five must have been a handful. Wess was funny, generous, caring, and so many other things we could say. Most importantly he loved the Lord and wanted to share the Good News with everyone he met. Barry shared that Wess for quite some time has said “At my funeral I want two songs, three jokes and see you later.”  That was Wess.  Wess will be missed by his family but also by the community. Rest in Peace, Wess, until we meet again.

As we work on this blog entry, it is 9:00 pm and we are traveling back to Red Bay. Hopefully, Fred will have his work started sometime tomorrow morning and we will be able to return to Blount County soon.