RVing With a Purpose

Tuesday, May 7, 2019

Weather-wise today was the same as yesterday. Really nice day. We didn’t even see a gray cloud. The rest of the week is predicted to be a real wash out so maybe the predictions will be wrong.

Virginia had our devotion today and used Philippians 4:13 as the basis and then read us “The Quilt”. Virginia is a quilter so this reading was special to here. We all agreed it’s special. If you haven’t read it you should.

 

After devotion we all headed back to our regular assignments, Max, Anne, Joe and Charley to Norwich and Gary, Sharon, Bob and Virginia to Groom Drive. Progress was made in all locations. Charley and Joe were excited to finish the laminate flooring in the master bedroom. It looks very good. We also completed the door installation of all the swinging doors. We are waiting for the materials needed to hand the bi-folds. We also started on the floor transition strips. Since we were planning the Bible presentation tonight we also tried to clean and straighten up a bit. Over at Groom they installed the counter tops and finished the flooring in the large closet. Both houses are looking good.

This afternoon Gary did an interview with a reporter for Channel 2, Baton Rouge. One of the church members called them to tell them about the good work the NOMADS have been doing. We will see if it is on the 10:00 news tonight. Hope so. After the interview we went over to Norwich to meet our home owner and make our Bible presentation. We had a nice visit and the rest of the team got to see the house as well. It was another great day.

Monday, May6, 2019

Today was another bright sunny, blue sky day. Only three more to go.

We met with Darrel before team meeting to discuss priorities on both houses. For the Norwich house he wants us to just continue and complete items in the same order we would normally do them. We are not going to do the plumbing or the installation of the appliances. Therefore when we got to Norwich Drive, Charley and Joe got started on the laminate flooring in the master bedroom and Anne worked on getting the master bath ready for texture. Hoping the texture people will be back tomorrow. Max returned to working on the door installation. By the end of the day only two rows of flooring remain to be installed. Charley and Joe have done a great job. Hopefully the bathroom is ready for texture and most of the doors are in place. Just a couple left along with some bi-fold doors.

 

At about 3:30 today the Lowe’s truck arrived at Norwich with the homeowner’s refrigerator. She has been trying to get a refrigerator installed for two weeks now. The first one she bought would not go through any door in the house. Today they brought another refrigerator that we hoped would make the clearance. It did not. Therefore, just as we had to do with the roll-in shower, we had to remove the back door, and door frame in order go get the refrigerator in the house. We reinstalled the door to the point we could secure the house for the night and we will complete the re-installation tomorrow. Hopefully, there will be no more door removals this week. After everything was secure, we hurried home to get ready for dinner.  Francis Asbury congregation provided us with a wonderful time of food and fellowship tonight with a fried chicken dinner with all the fixen’s.  We had to say our good byes tonight as we will not see these precious friends again before we leave.

We are making progress. We will accomplish what God wills this week.

Sunday, May 5, 2019

As expected, Saturday was a rainy day. The rain began about 5:00 am and continued until early afternoon. There were times of very heavy rain and there were tornado warnings for parishes to our south and east but things never got bad here at Francis Asbury. We were glad we decided to do our shopping and errands on Friday. By mid-afternoon the sun was out and that’s when our new team members arrived, Joe and Charley. They are relatively new NOMADS and this was our first time to meet them. We look forward to working with them and getting to know them better.

Today, of course we went to church here at Francis Asbury. During the announcement time pastor David surprised us all by announcing to the church that the Bishop had made the appointment for their pastor for next year and that it was Rev. Anne Armstrong. We all got a good laugh at that announcement and he was just thanking Anne for filling in for him last week. Today was communion Sunday and Pastor David brought a message about truly communing with our Lord through the service of communion.

After church the team decided to go to Rice and Roux for lunch. We have enjoyed all our visits there over the past two years working in Baton Rouge. They ownership and staff there always thank us for our service to their community and the owner gives a 20% discount to all the volunteers working the flooding disaster. They also routinely give the same discount to all the fire and police. Tonight we had our regular Sunday night meeting and we will meet again at 8:00 in the morning. It’s been a good weekend.

Friday, May 3, 2019

Sorry for no post yesterday but we were tired. It was NOMADS Friday and everyone seemed very glad. The additional heat and humidity has made it more difficult this week. Thursday was another nice day. Cloudy at times and a sprinkle or two but nothing to bother us.

Janice brought us our devotional yesterday using Mathew 23:23, “woe to you hypocrites”. She used the analogy of washing dishes. Do you wash the outside and then use the cup again or should you not wash the inside first? We need to allow God to clean us on the inside first and then do good works. Thanks, Janice.

We all went back to work at our regular houses. Janice and Marvin worked on painting the base boards that were delivered Wednesday. They completed about 2/3 of the boards. Janice is originally from Minnesota although she has been in Texas for over 40 years. She calls the boards “mop boards”. Says they have always been called mop boards in Minnesota. Bless her heart. Anne and Pat began the day working on the master bath ceiling again. Max worked on installing doors with Pat assisting. She learned to use the trim nailer and did a great job. Roger worked on installing the faucets in both bathrooms and the kitchen. He did a great job working in the heat inside the cabinets. He couldn’t complete the installation because we didn’t have all the parts needed for the drains but he got the rest of the installations done. A lot was accomplished at Norwich last week. There is still a lot to do but we are continuing to plug away.

At Groom Road we understand the bedroom vinyl flooring was completed and work began in the hall. Progress was made in the kitchen as well. They also did a lot of staining of the wood walls in that house. The scope of work has expanded on this house so we are not sure how close to completion they are. Sadly, at this point we don’t think either of these homes will be complete when our mission is over next Thursday, but there are people coming after us that will get the joy of completing what we began.

Since we had three couples leaving this morning, we all went out for a nice dinner last night at Bass Pro Shop. Great fun!

We said “see you down the road” to Janice and Marvin, Pat and Roger and Ruth Ann and Dave this morning. Travel safely, dear friends, and we hope to see you soon.

After saying our goodbyes, Bob and Virginia invited us to visit Bluebonnet Swamp Nature Center. It was really surprising to find a swamp in downtown Baton Rouge. It is a 103 acre facility in the heart of Baton Rouge, dedicated to conservation, education, and tourism. There are gravel and boardwalk trails out through the swamp and some really good exhibits inside the nature center. We saw fish, turtles, the largest barred owl we have ever seen, and numerous other birds outside along with all sorts of turtles and snakes in various terrariums inside the center. Lots of fun!

After returning to Fred, we ran our errands for the week because tomorrow predicted to be stormy. On the way back we stopped at Rice & Roux for some gumbo and fried fish. Hope you all have a great weekend.