Author: rvingwithapurpose

Tuesday, April 5, 2017

Today was another gorgeous day!! The high was in the low 80’s with beautiful blue skies and puffy white scattered clouds. Bill had devotion this morning. He and his wife Marti are very dear friends of ours and we are so glad they are working with us here at Sumatanga. They have never been here before and are really impressed with the camp. Actually we are the only members of our team who have been to Sumatanga before. We love to spread the good word about Sumatanga. Bill’s devotion was on justice and equality and as usual had it’s funny moments but was thought provoking and resulted in some good discussion. It was then time to go to work. Bill had completed the plans for the lakeside bathroom last night and reviewed those and the materials list with Dennis and Max. Work was begun with a search of the shop for plumbing parts, then scraping of walls and some inside demolition, and cleaning of floors. Bill and Jim got lots done in one day. Richard and Patrick continued to work on the rebuilding of the new door opening and wall in Little Brown. Max, Richard and Pat hiked up the mountain to base camp where the tent platforms will be built and Richard and Pat unloaded the trailer. Of course, Max can still only supervise which he HATES. It was a big job to unload all the lumber because there were some really big boards. They were pretty tired after they hiked back down the mountain but then returned to work in Little Brown. Harriet, Marti and Anne, continued the work with candles, material and other worship props and completed that task. They then continued clean up in the Little Brown storage areas. They also completed an inventory of five large storage closets at the Retreat Center. Max worked with some of the Sumatanga guys on closing in some large double doors at the kitchen loading dock at pool camp kitchen. The maintenance guys here are great. They made sure Max didn’t over do it and lift anything over his weight limit. Max goes back to see the surgeon tomorrow so we are praying for a good report. It was a busy day but we accomplished a lot. Oh, and we had a wonderful lunch of made from scratch lasagna with garlic bread, salad and fresh chocolate chip cookies. Yep, got a feeling we are going to gain weight. Sorry we didn’t take many pictures of our work today – we were just too busy. Will try to do better tomorrow. However, don’t know how much work we will get done tomorrow. We have a horrible forecast with a Moderate risk of severe thunderstorms with possible long track tornadoes. A Moderate risk is the second highest risk level the Storm Prediction Center uses.

We will have the motorhome all secured and weather radio in hand by about 4:00am when the first line is suppose to arrive. It may be a long day. Everyone needs to be very careful and pay attention to the weather tomorrow. Praying for safety for everyone.

Monday, April 3, 2017

We had WHOLE LOT OF RAIN last night and today. There was some thunder and lightning but mostly rain. It was really pouring this morning at devotional time so we met in the Retreat Center and as we were leaving the camp ground we spotted some of the ducks swimming in the giant puddles instead of the lake. Too funny! We we drove over to pool camp after devotion, there was more water coming over the falls into the old pool than we have ever seen. Last fall when we were here there was almost no water flowing and it was a stagnant pool of water. Gorgeous today!!

When we are leaders, we always like to be responsible for devotion the first and last day so today was our day. Interesting, we had put a devotion together a week or two ago about first responders and how we can all be responders for God and our “first response” should be to pray and then to act. It was based on the story of the good Samaritan in Luke 10:29-37. We decided to go ahead with our devotion as planned even though the team heard this scripture preached on yesterday. Sometimes we need to hear things more than once to really get God’s message.

After devotion, we went to work. We will be doing a little upgrade to the pool camp kitchen. There was a lot of moving of appliances etc. in preparation for redoing the floor. Today it was pressure washed and scrubbed with a floor buffer and now we are awaiting the final decision on if they want it painted or tiled or some other surface applied. There are also a couple of walls to be built in the kitchen. The team also worked at Little Brown. Little Brown is the first building you see when you come into camp and is now the summer camp office. There was a new door to cut in, some additional removal of tile flooring, and sorting and organization of the worship supplies – candles, linens, and other items used in making nice worship settings.

Tonight the camp provided us with a lovely “Welcome to Sumatanga Dinner.” Lee Padgett, camp director and his wife Debbie, Bishop of our North Alabama Conference, joined us as well as Dennis and Amanda. What a wonderful group of people. They are a joy to work with.

As usual the team has really come together even though this was our first day of work. Great group to work with! We all just pray that God blesses our efforts so that we may accomplish what he wants done in this place.

Sunday, April 2, 2017

Wow! Another wonderful spring day. It was a little foggy early today and a little cool. Had to run the heat pump this morning. The team left for church at 7:20. We headed to Springville First United Methodist Church for the 8:00 am bluegrass service. The service is a regular worship service, but with the music being of the bluegrass genre. The musicians are quite talented. They have written some of the songs, some of which you would probably recognize. You could tell the congregation really enjoyed the service. They were very welcoming to us. Since everyone needed to go to Walmart we had breakfast at the Waffle House that is located on the same property as Walmart. They were very crowded and it was quite noisy making it difficult to have conversation.

After shopping it was back to the campground for Sunday afternoon naps for some and hiking and biking for others. Just a few minutes after parking the car we went back outside and were surprised by ducks resting under the rear of the car. They really weren’t bothered by us but we were sure glad we didn’t jump in the car and back up. We have not seen them come up into the campground and get under the vehicles before.

We cooked a peach cobbler to have for the 6:00 pm team meeting, the first official activity of this project. There is always a time of sharing to start to get to know the team and then some paperwork and safety items to cover. Dennis, the facilities manager, met with us and went over the top five items he hopes we complete. Don’t think we will have any problems completing those items but we will see what else comes up. Hope everyone has a good week.

Saturday, April 1, 2017

Today was another glorious spring day in Alabama. We started the morning with a 2 mile hike/walk on the Lake Trail.

What a great way to start the day. After breakfast we worked to cordon off the camp sites because we learned there would be a wedding here at the McBee pavilion which is right at the campground. We were concerned that we would not be able to get the incoming rigs parked if wedding guests parked blocking the sites. Mid-morning the wedding planner arrived and we learned it would be a 4:00 wedding.

Fortunately all our team members were able to arrive by 3:00 so we were able to get everyone parked before the wedding began. It was so great to see Bill and Marty again and to meet Patrick, James and Harriet. Most importantly we are so thankful for safe travels for them all. They all had uneventful travel days. Thank you Lord!! All our chicks are in the barn and we are very happy. We can relax now. We were all making jokes about crashing the reception which of course we did not, but after the reception was over the caterer gave the team a large tray of barbeque pork, chicken salad and rolls. Wow. It is very good and we have plenty to eat for next week.

The team decided that they would like to attend the early (8:00 am) bluegrass service at Springville UMC in the morning. After that there will probably be a brunch stop and a Walmart stop for most. We will see what people want to do tomorrow afternoon. Don’t forget, we all need to be in prayer for our church services and pastors. Go to services tomorrow looking forward to the opportunity to worship. It’s about our Lord, not about us.