RVing With a Purpose

Monday, December3, 2018

Nice warm day today. It did rain for a short time this morning but it was 60 when we got up and our high was 70. It’s already down to 54 tonight and the next few days will be cold again. Seems we are having cold weather a little early this year.

Gene shared our devotion today. He plays guitar for us every day which adds so much to our devotion time. Our scripture today was Rev 21:1-7. Gene talked about snow today, and the different reactions we have the first snow of the season. Some enjoy the beauty, some think of the fun winter sports, other gripe about having to go shovel the drive, but most would agree there is beauty in a new snowfall. Gene reminded us from Rev 21, God makes all things new. Through Jesus, we all have the opportunity for new life. Mary Ann closed with the poem, “Heaven’s Grocery Store“. Thanks Gene for sharing and singing and playing.

After devotion we headed back to work. We missed Carol and Bruce today as they are both under the weather. Mary Ann and Cindy went back to Jim and Mary’s to work on the drywall finishing. They also did some priming and then headed back to Jackie’s. Dave, Gene and Joe worked at Jackie’s all day. They installed the kitchen sink and the bathroom vanities. When the ladies got there they painted the front porch. The house is looking good.

 

Anne, Max and Lee went back to Bruce and Elsie’s house. We sanded and then put a second coat of mud on the ceiling. Of course, after completing the mudding, we cleaned everything up again and removed the tarp, and reinstalled the TV so Ms Elsie could watch it this evening. We then drove back into town and spent the remainder of the day at Jackie’s helping with a few little things there.

We are hoping to complete two of the houses this week and Jackie’s will hopefully be complete before we leave in 2 weeks. Fun times coming when we get to turn houses back over to their owners.

Sunday, December 2, 2018

Yesterday we had a busy day and didn’t get back until about 11:00 pm so, sorry no blog last night. We started Saturday by making breakfast for Dave and Carol. They gave us some cinnamon apple brioche. So we made cinnamon apple brioche eggnog french toast and had Carol and Dave over for breakfast. We had been hunting the brioche and they found a loaf while shopping the other day and brought it to us. It made good french toast. Thanks, Dave and Carol.

After breakfast we took care of some business and then went to the gym. (Needed after the French toast breakfast.) We are really trying to get more faithful with our exercise. We got good exercise five days last week and over 10,000 steps 6 days. Sometimes we are just too tired when we get home from work to go to the gym but we are trying. It is certainly easier if we can hike/walk from where we are camping but the area of Lumberton where we are parked has no sidewalks.

Last night the entire team went to see the play “Christmas Cactus” at Theater Now in Wilmington. Wilmington is about 1.5 hours from Lumberton and it rained the entire drive there and back. Hard drive. However, the dinner theater was worth the drive. The food was good, as was the acting. “Christmas Cactus” is a comedy murder mystery. There was lots of laughter during the play and good conversation for dinner. As usual, when NOMADS are doing things together, we were having fun.

 

Today, it was still raining when we got up this morning. And the temperature was already above 60. It was cloudy until about noon but then we had some sunshine this afternoon. However, we will probably have more rain overnight. It sure is wet around here. Unfortunately, the Lumber River never dropped below flood stage and now is again rising. They expect it to continue to rise until about noon Wednesday.

The team went back to Chestnut Street UMC for church today where the sanctuary was fully decorated for Christmas. The Chrismon tree was lit during the service along with the hanging of the greens. There was also the lighting of the advent candles. The hand bell choir also performed today. It was all very good. Pastor Herbert brought us a wonderful message of hope from Jeremiah 33:14-16. We only have one more week to worship at Chestnut Street and we will miss this welcoming community of believers when we leave. But we will also be glad to have a few weeks at our home church before we start our 2019 mission projects.

Thank you, Barry and Donna for getting the Pine Mountain Star turned on today. We missed being there to work on it. (Click here to see last year’s blog post about the Star.)

This afternoon we returned to the gym. Rested. Welcomed Mike and Lee back for another week and watched another Christmas movie. It was a good day. Hope you all had a wonderful weekend.

Friday, November 30, 2018

Goodness, the last day of November. Thirty-one days left in 2018. We still have too much to do. We are going to need a few extra days this month.

Last night was one of those strange weather nights. Our low of 38 was at about 9:00 last night and then the temperature started climbing. It was 42 at 5:00 this morning. That 16 degree difference made a big difference in our comfort when we walked outside. It was a cloudy day with a very light rain for a short time.

Today was the day Nancy and Gary had to leave us, which was sad, but it will only be for a week. There are coming back to join us for our last week here in Lumberton. We started planing some fun things to do for our last week. We were glad to hear when Nancy and Gary arrived home safely and look forward to their return.

As a lot of Fridays are for us, it was a catch up day. We needed to run errands (Tractor Supply, Verizon, Walmart, Dollar Tree), buy groceries and do laundry.  We went by Lowe’s but there was a sign on the door that they were closed for restocking after the new NOMADS shopping spree. LOL. There was business to handle. We also went back to the gym for a good work-out. After returning home Anne conducted another new member interview for NOMADS. We have another couple who will make good NOMADS soon. With laundry done, blog done, dishes clean. Now it’s time to watch a Christmas movie. It was another good day.

Thursday, November 29, 2018

This morning was colder than yesterday. Twenty-six with a heavy frost. Fortunately we were not having to work outside, so no problems. Also, we received notification yesterday that Lumberton was no longer under a flood warning. Wrong! Got notification this morning that Lumberton remains under the flood warning. The Lumber River in Lumberton is still at 14.25 feet and flood is 13.0 feet. The river is still falling ever so slowly. It is not expected to be to 14 until sometime Saturday. While the flood stage doesn’t seem very bad, water still remains everywhere. We drove down to Whiteville for dinner tonight and along the highway there was still so much standing water. It was also still obvious that the houses along the highway had been under water because of all the belongings piled beside the road. The prediction is for rain Saturday through Tuesday. Hopefully they are wrong.

Today Bruce lead us in devotion. He shared from Our Daily Bread daily devotion which is another really good devotion source. Today’s was entitled Lord Of The Moment. It ended with the reminder that our lives are better off in God’s hands than in our own. How very true! Thanks, Bruce.

We then all headed back out to work. Nancy went back to Elsie and Bruce’s house us. Gary went over to Jackie’s to work on the counter tops with most of the rest of the team. Mary Ann and Cindy went back to Mary and Jim’s to put another coat of mud on the drywall.

Back out at Elsie and Bruce’s house we set back up for mudding and sanding. We sanded the drywall that had one coat of mud and all the nail holes, filled more holes as needed and applied the first coat of mud on everything else. Everything went very smoothly today. After completing the mudding, since it was our last work day this week, we cleaned the job site really well. Today we removed the tarp from the living room floor and vacuumed really well. Then we set the TV back up so they could watch and moved the couch back into the living room for the weekend. We also cleaned up all the debris from the demo and loaded it into the trailer. We had been very careful to keep all the debris on a tarp which we kept covered over night but the dogs decided to play tug of war with the tarp and it is now in shreds. This afternoon we took all the debris and the shreds of tarp to the dumpster.

After we dropped of some equipment we no longer needed at the warehouse, we went to Jackie’s to see what had been accomplished there this week. We were excited that Jackie arrived while we were there and we got to visit with her for a while. Her house is coming right a long and is getting very close to completion.

Tonight the team went to Whiteville to Dale’s Seafood restaurant. Ann and Jeff suggested this restaurant and we all had a good time. The team this week has been so much fun. Gary and Nancy will be going back home tomorrow but will return in a week. We will miss them. They have been such a blessing and we are so thankful we have them as new friends. We are praying for safe travels for them and a quick return to Lumberton. It’s NOMADS Friday so maybe we can sleep in tomorrow.