Author: rvingwithapurpose

Sunday August 6, 2017

We are really having some lovely weather right now. It was 64 this morning, very good temperatures for some exercise for this time of year in Alabama. Yes, you don’t have a dry thread when you finish but with a breeze it’s pretty tolerable. At least is is a lot better than a few weeks ago.

It’s Sunday so of course we went to church at Lester Memorial UMC. Pastor Barry had a wonderful message today. He is such a man of God and we just love him so much (even if he is our cousin.) It was a great day at church. It was promotion Sunday for the children. We had a report from one of our folks that went to the Philippines recently and a wonderful worship service. God is so good to us.

Update: A lot of you have been praying for our 13 year old cousin, Josh, who has a rare brain and spinal cancer. We got to see Josh at the wedding yesterday. He was feeling well enough to come even though he had chemo earlier in the week. He has had a really good summer and will be starting high school this week. Thank you for your prayers and please continue. We also have another cousin, Wes, who has been battling liver cancer. He is now on hospice so we ask for prayers for him and the family.

After having Juno and Helen for lunch, we had a quiet afternoon. We were thinking about what to blog about today and started looking through some of our old pictures for this date. We found one of Anne’s mother standing in a field of tall fireweed in Alaska taken August 6, 1986 when she and Anne’s dad made their trip to Alaska in their Tiffin motorhome. We also found a picture of Anne in the tall fireweed taken 28 years and 2 days later in 2014. Love that we were able to digitize the 1986 Alaska album of Anne’s mom and dad.

That’s it for today. May God bless you and may we all follow His plans for our week.

Saturday, August 05, 2017

Today was another gorgeous summer day, and today we can write about something happy. We did some more work around the house this morning – which in a way is a happy thing because we are able to do it.  Our first cousin twice removed (Max’s first cousin’s grandson) got married and we went to the wedding at our church, Lester Memorial UMC. The groom and his parents live very close to us and his Mom and Dad are some of our dearest friends. The wedding was basically traditional but also had light-hearted moments. We’re not sure if the “light-hearted” part was planned or just a spontaneous reflection of the bride’s and groom’s personalities.  For example, during the service they braided a “Trinity Cross” to symbolize the three persons making up the union – the bride, the groom and Jesus. They seemed to have a little difficulty with braiding the cords so when they finished they looked at each other, laughed and high-fived. Later, when the pastor gave the groom permission to kiss the bride, she turned to the congregation and grinned and pumped her fists. Then as they were headed back down the aisle as husband and wife, the groom jumped up and clicked his heels together.

The reception did not have the usual nuts, mints and punch. There was a french fry bar and chicken fingers along with wonderful fruit and vegetables. Again, the reception was fun. No stuffiness. The bride and groom enjoyed their wedding day, as they should. And we did too! They are a sweet young Christian couple and we wish them the very best as they start their life together.

 

Otherwise things seem to be going fairly well with all our family – do we dare actually say that? Anne’s mom’s walking is improving. Juno and Helen are adjusting. All is good.

Tomorrow is Sunday so we look forward to getting to go worship at Lester Memorial again. If all goes as planned we will also get to attend our Sunday School class. When we get to go back we realize how much we miss everyone when we are gone. Remember to pray for your pastors. Hope you are having a great weekend.

Friday, August 4, 2017

As we have said, on NOMADS projects we work Monday through Thursday. Then usually we have a fun day and a maintenance day, then Sunday and back to work on Monday. We are not on a project but today was our maintenance day at the house since it was actually our first day to spend at home since returning from North Carolina. We walked a few rounds this morning and had and omelet and cheese toast for breakfast. As soon as breakfast was over Max was on the tractor bush-hogging the pasture and around Helen’s house. He also bush-hogged around the walking trail since the grass was getting pretty high there, too.

 

Anne spent the day cleaning house and doing laundry as well as checking on the LOL’s.

What a fun day! (Sarcasm intended)

August 3, 2017

Today was another beautiful summer day. Not too hot and we missed almost all the rain that was predicted. We left the house a little after 7am and stopped by Helen’s to check in with today’s Visiting Angel. So far so good. We got the truck hooked up and headed out about 8:00.

As stated yesterday we were in route back to Sherman RV to get a few things repaired on the motor home. We arrived in Sherman, MS without difficulty. We did follow an eighteen wheeler – “Trailer Swift” that must have been impaired or distracted. He couldn’t seem to keep his rig on the road. He came very close to side swiping another big rig. We just tried to stay out of his way. After arriving at Sherman we went over the issues with the coach with the service manager and then headed to Tuscaloosa to see Anne’s Mom.

 

Shortly before we left Sherman Anne’s brother called to say that our precious friend Ralph Krupp had died. Ralph and Anne’s mom became very close friends after each of their spouses died. Ralph became very special to their entire family. Anne, Jimmy and Sonny had so much respect for Ralph. He was 98 years old and a WWII 2 fighter pilot. After he had flown all the combat missions they would allow he volunteered and stayed over seas and flew support missions. Ralph flew all day on D-Day, dropping bombs. He said he was too busy to be afraid he was going to die. After returning from the war Ralph became a well respected and successful business man in Tuscaloosa. We lost another great one today. Rest In Peace, Ralph. We will miss you!

Driving from Sherman to Tuscaloosa, we went through Columbus, MS and drove past Columbus Air Force Base. We saw several jets take off right in front of our truck. Another reminder of Ralph and his service.

We arrived in Tuscaloosa to check on Anne’s mom and offer comfort, sympathy and support to find that members of her church were already there. There was a constant stream of members of her Sunday School class coming by to check on her. We ran errands for Momma Ruby then came on back home since it was obvious that she was going to have lots of people showing her love. Certainly was a comfort to us.