RVing With a Purpose

Monday, January 8, 2018

Last night after finishing the blog we watched the Space X launch. It was awesome. We watched an orange glow slowly come up over the horizon. Soon there was the spacecraft spewing fire from the rear going higher and higher. You could hear the roar. We even saw second stage separation. It was so cool. Several of our team members were outside with us watching. Everyone enjoyed the treat. We were able to view two launches when we were working a project in Melbourne 2 years ago. Sure people who live in Florida in the area of the Cape seem to just ignore the launches, but any time we are in the area we try to see them. The night launches are especially fun to watch. There is a possibility of another launch while we are here. We will be watching the schedule.

Today we started our work here at Florida United Methodist Children’s Home. There is much work to be done as is always the case at the Children’s homes. After devotion, those of us who have never volunteered here were taken on a tour of the facility by the volunteer coordinator. It helped us to get better oriented. We got to talk to one of the couples working as house parents as they showed us one of the children’s cottages.

There is a full time minister appointed to serve here to serve the children and the over 220 member staff. They also have a county school on campus and they work very hard to get the children back up to grade level with student teacher ratios of about 1 teacher and 1 paraprofessional to every 6-8 children. The program is very comprehensive for children age 5-18. They have some children that come in as private placements and some that are placed by the state. Sad that we need places like this but very thankful that this place is here for these children. We would ask that you add these children and the staff to your prayer list.

After our tour some of us started working on replacing a fence, some of us began painting and some began designing covers to be built for some of the equipment in the water treatment plant. After the design they came up with a materials list and plan to start construction tomorrow. There was also some landscaping done today. It will be a busy 3 weeks. We pray God will use us in this place to be his hands and feet.

Sunday, January 7, 2018

Wow, heat wave! It was 41 when we got up this morning. It was a partly cloudy day, but even so the temperatures were in the lower 60’s this afternoon. With the wind you still needed a jacket, but so much better. We know a lot of you still haven’t gotten above freezing so you probably don’t want to read this, but we are so glad to be out of the deep freeze.  Finally.

Today was Sunday, so of course we had a slow paced quiet morning and most of the team went to Osteen UMC for worship. One of our team members, Bob, is interim pastor there. He is a retired UMC pastor and currently lives a little south of here. Osteen is just about 7 miles from our campsites at the Children’s Home. The church is small, 65 members, and mostly elderly. They were very warm and welcoming and Bob brought us a good message from Mark 1:4-11 on the baptism of Jesus by John. The team members seemed to enjoy our visit and after services ten of us went to a local restaurant, The Osteen Diner. Original name don’t you think? There was a wide variety of selections, from wonderful breakfast fare to sandwiches and entrees. We had the country fried chicken special which was wonderful. We would definitely go back here again.  We have enough for lunch tomorrow in the refrigerator. After lunch it was time for a quick nap, and a little laundry. Our last team members arrived just before 4:00. Good to have the entire team safely parked. Of course since we aren’t leading this team, we don’t have to keep up with everyone. Our first team meeting was at 4:00 where we did the official introductions and were given general information about the project. We will start at 8:00 in the morning with devotion and then we will meet the maintenance staff and have a tour of the campus. We are looking forward to getting started. Seems like a fun team and should be a good project. Hope you had a great weekend and stayed warm.

Saturday, January 6, 2018

Today we awoke in Live Oak to below freezing temperatures as expected, 27. It was certainly better than the 23 predicted. However, we had our happy face on, because we knew that the low tonight in Enterprise should be 36 and tomorrow night 51. We are finally far enough south! Highs in the 70s and lows in the 50s are fine with us.

We left Live Oak Lowe’s at 7:15 after a quiet night of good sleep. Forgetting we lost an hour yesterday, the sun was just coming up as we again headed east on I-10. After just a few miles we headed south on I-75. We stopped twice, once at a rest area and then to top off FRED’s fuel. We don’t like to park for three weeks without a full tank. After getting fuel we drove across the Ocala National Forest on the Black Bear Scenic Byway. Unfortunately, the only bear we saw were on the warning signs telling us to watch for bears the next 30 miles. Then by 11:15 we were at Florida United Methodist Children’s Home in Enterprise, Florida, our home for the next three weeks. We were met by our leaders, Kathy and Terry who helped us get parked. We didn’t take time to set up before we saw Ruth and Mike and Jo and Mark for a few minutes. We saw them all last at annual meeting in September and are so glad to be with them again. We are really looking forward to getting caught up with both couples. We then spent the afternoon, setting up, cleaning up, doing some laundry, unwinterizing, etc. We are now settled in and will have our first team meeting at 4:00 tomorrow afternoon. We might get a bike ride in before that time. Please be in prayer for all the pastors and services tomorrow. We are so blessed to have the privilege to worship in this country, one we shouldn’t take for granted.

Friday, January 5, 2018

Another cold below freezing night. It was a really nice sunrise though. We liked our site because we could lay in bed and look out the window out across the water and see the sunrise. Such a peaceful way to start the day. It was another bright sunny day, with a little less wind. We slowly packed up and got ready to head east. Next week is suppose to be nice at Gulf Shores. Last week was nice. We had bad timing this time. Oh well, with Anne not feeling well maybe it was all for the best. She did get more rest since it was too cold to do the biking we had planned to do.

So today was travel day. We left Gulf Shores about 10:00 CST headed for Live Oak, Florida. It was an easy drive with the only significant traffic around Tallahassee. We stopped a couple of times, found a geocache at a visitor’s center, filled up FRED and arrived about 5:00 EST. We will be on eastern time now for the next 6 weeks. Anyway, totally uneventful day.

When we arrived at Live Oak, we went to Lowe’s. We checked inside for permission to overnight in their lot. We stayed here two years ago on the way south. We like it because they close at 9:00 and it’s nice and quiet. After checking in we had supper of split-pea soup (that had been cooking all day in our thermos) and crackers. Then we enjoyed some hot chocolate for dessert. We will leave by the time Lowe’s opens in the morning. We only have about a four hour drive tomorrow. Hopefully it will be as uneventful as today. And tonight should be our last night below freezing. So looking forward to warmer weather. Hope you are having a great weekend and praying for safe travel for all the other NOMADS headed to their projects this weekend.