rvingwithapurpose

Poison Ivy Tree

October 1, 2020

It was another beautiful fall day in north Alabama and the end of our first week at Camp Sumatanga. We have such a great, fun team to work with this year. We are getting to know our new friends Phil and Mary from Pennsylvania and Karla from Birmingham. We are really enjoying working with them. Welcome to NOMADS!

Sharon brought our devotion today using Isaiah 55:9 as the scripture. She reminded us that God’s ways are not our ways. God has a plan and has it all figured out. We need to trust him and remember He is in control. Thanks, Sharon. We all need that reminder from time to time.

Today the team completed the painting of the cabin, took the tables and chairs to the Chapel for tomorrow’s wedding and completed the cleanup of the landscaping in the day use area. The place now looks like we remember it. Now if we can all just not breakout with poison ivy from pulling all the weeds.

You have probably seen enough pictures of us mowing, cutting brush and painting so here is something interesting we found. This looks like a deciduous tree growing near a pine. But it is actually a poison ivy vine growing about 25 feet up a pine tree.

The base of the poison ivy vine was almost 5 inches in diameter. That is even bigger than the ones we have on our property.

♫ Going to the Chapel … ♫

Wednesday, September 30, 2020

Since there is a wedding scheduled for Friday at the chapel on the mountain above Sumatanga, our priority today was to clean up that area. No one has been to the top of the mountain since March so everything was very overgrown. There were downed trees blocking the two-track gravel road. There were many branches leaning out over the road. You could not get through without them rubbing against your vehicle. Dead branches were on the ground, as well as all the grass being extremely tall and thick. It looked very overwhelming as we drove in off the main road. Our first assessment was it was at least a 3-4 day task and we only had two days. It was really sad to see the camp in such a state. After a few moments of looking around and shaking our heads, we just got to work. We had nine NOMADS plus Stephen, the maintenance department, helping. Two NOMADS stayed at camp to continue the painting. By this afternoon the place was transformed. Totally amazing! We will still have a little work to do tomorrow when we take the tables and chairs up the mountain. Everything is looking so nice and the view from the Chapel down into the valley is just as beautiful as ever. We are very tired tonight.

The lake during our morning walk

Clearing trees from the roadway between the chapel and the parking area

Cutting up a tree that had fallen in the parking area

It Rained. We Painted.

Tuesday, September 29, 2020

Yep. That’s what we did today. If you want to know a little more, it began raining last night. It stopped raining about 10:00 AM. We began cleaning the walls of a cabin at pool camp at 8:30 and began painting after lunch. We have completed about ½ of the painting. There was lots of laughing and lots accomplished today.

First Work Day of the Project

Monday, September 28, 2020

What a wonderful fall day we had today! There was a breeze most of the day. The sun was shining brightly. It was still a typical humid Alabama day so it was a little hot when we were working hard but such a wonderful day. This project will be different from all the others at Sumatanga. Don’t guess we should expect anything else since it’s 2020. This year we will not have a “major” project. We will be working around the camp trying to help catch up some of the routine work. Most of the staff has been furloughed due to COVID and no events taking place at the camp and only one person working in maintenance so there is much to be done. Today we worked in the day use area around the lake and campground cutting grass, picking up limbs, trimming trees and shrubs. That area of the campus already looks so much better. We all enjoyed working outside together. It’s going to be a fun week.