RVing With a Purpose

Sunday, May 5, 2024

After arriving back in Johnston last Saturday, we had a very short – 2 day- visit with Randy and Debra.  After that, we made the 3.5-hour drive to Hardeeville, SC on Tuesday. Hardeeville is a small community just across the state line from Savannah, GA and the location of the Switch It Up spring huddle.  The huddle didn’t actually begin until Thursday evening but a number of us arrived early to have time to visit with friends, relax and help get ready for the rest of the crew.  Wednesday evening, we had our Bible study group join us at Fred.  All but one couple were at the huddle and Connie and David were able to join us via the internet via Fred’s outside TV.  All 16 of us were able to visit and enjoy some dessert.  It was really nice to have most of our group in person.  Real hugs are much better than virtual hugs.  Our virtual meetings and hugs every Wednesday night are good – but in person – so much better.  This group has become so close.  We are so blessed to be meeting with them each week.

Thursday the rest of the crew arrived, and the fun began for real and continued through the weekend and on into this week.  We shared meals together, spent time getting to know new friends – there were 30-40 people who had never been to a huddle before- and renewing acquaintances from previous gatherings.  We gave back to the community by cleaning up trash from the roadsides, giving donations to the homeless shelter and treats to the police and firefighters. We enjoyed catered meals, potlucks, games, worship, RV tours, pickle ball, e-bike rides, motorbike rides, a visit to the Wormsloe State Historic Site and an afternoon in Savannah enjoying the trolley tour learning about the history of the area, eating more good food and pralines.  After the huddle officially ended Monday morning, we spent time saying goodbyes and getting a little rest.  We had one more potluck Monday night for those of us who continued to hang out in Hardeeville. It’s just so hard to say goodbye to the crew.

We spent Tuesday visiting Savannah and met friends for lunch.

Wednesday, we visited the Savannah National Wildlife Refuge.  We saw 14 alligators, and lots of birds before getting back on the road and returning the Johnston Thursday. Another great experience with the Switch Crew.  So much love shared!  Just a super group of people.  So blessed to call them friends.  For those that are not aware, Switch It Up began as a YouTube channel about three years ago but now is so much more.  It is a group of RVer’s who have come together to inspire others, create community and impact the world.

Sunday, April 21, 2024

After taking Friday to catch our breath, do a little laundry and buy a few groceries, we left Sumatanga Saturday morning and drove to Leitchfield, KY to Camp Loucon where we worked with another NOMADS team for this past week.  We had never worked at Loucon and it was fun to experience a new camp.  Loucon is in a beautiful and peaceful wooded setting in western Kentucky and like many of our camps had a long list of deferred maintenance items that they needed some help catching up.  Charlotte led our team totaling 11 NOMADS.  We have enjoyed working with Charlotte, Larry, Kathy, and Les several times and it was great to see them all again, and we especially enjoyed getting to know new-to-us NOMADS, John, Frank, Jill, Tom and Joan.

We began our work on Monday by removing some old siding from three cabins and replacing with new material.  There was a work day scheduled for Saturday with about 100 additional volunteers arriving and they were to paint the new siding.

We also over the course of the week, replaced two porches on other buildings, rebuilt the steps on one of the office buildings, began building new game pits for summer camp and began the work of restoring an outdoor worship center.  Eric the new camp director and the staff were very excited about the work we were able to complete this first week.

This week we also worked  Friday – an uncommon event for NOMADS.  Joan reached out to Project Volunteer (PV) as part of her work as Co-chair of our promotions committee.  PV arrived at Loucon Friday morning to video the work we were doing and interview Anne, Eric and others on our team.  Project Volunteer will be producing a TV show for NRB TV and YouTube from the interviews and video.  We will keep you posted when it is completed.  They will provide us a copy of the 28 minute show and a number of the shorts they produce.  Our hope is that we can use this to help us reach out to draw more new members.  This was a fun addition to the project as the PV people were very low key and easy to work with.  They are also Christians and use their talents to encourage others to volunteer.

We are now back in South Carolina with Randy and Debra for a couple days before we go to the next Switch It Up Huddle.  We are looking forward to catching up with friends at the Huddle.  Next week’s blog post may be a few days late so that we can include all the Huddle information.

Sunday, April 14, 2024

Our last week on this project started with us finishing the playground equipment repairs and painting at the administration building and ended with us starting some minor wall repairs in some of the Pool Camp cabins. In between we found out that the wall covering on the fourth walls in the three bathrooms (that we thought we finished last week) also needed to be removed.

It was another great NOMADS project at Camp Sumatanga.  We always enjoy working with Gary and Sharon and made some wonderful new friends in Dennis and Pam.  We look forward to working with them again down the road.  The highlight of the week was Thursday morning when Pastor Tony, the camp director, brought us our morning devotion and held communion for the team and some of the camp staff. It was a fitting end to a wonderful project at our favorite camp.

April 7, 2024

Monday morning of week two after devotion, we went to Cabin 3 to work on the leaking roof. It’s a tin roof and several of the screws were either missing or were not tight.  We replaced all the missing and loose screws with larger screws and put roof sealant where needed.  The rest of the week we had a little rain and there were no leaks but it is predicted we will have heavy rain several days this next week so hopefully the cabin will remain dry.

After finishing up at Cabin 3, we rejoined the rest of the team back at cabin 6.  We completed that work Tuesday before lunch and then moved to the Administration building to reinstall exterior ceiling panels that were removed when there was a leak in the fire suppression system.  Some painting is still needed at the Admin building and we will probably have enough rainy days this week to get that work done.

Wednesday and Thursday we worked on the small building where the high ropes course gear is stored and the playground.  We removed the shingles and decking from the gear building and then redecked and put on a tin roof.  The playground was installed after the 1994 Palm Sunday tornado hit Goshen United Methodist Church in Piedmont, AL.  Twenty church members lost their life in that storm including Pastor Kelly Clem’s young daughter, Hannah.  The playground is a memorial to Hannah placed by Kelly and her husband.  We’ve been working to replace some of the broken pieces of the playground equipment.  It’s been a difficult job as we try to match new and older pieces of the playground, but it is also a work of love and brings back many memories of all the tornadoes we worked over the 22 years Max worked as Emergency Management Director.  Hopefully we will get enough good weather this week to complete this work.

Today we were again blessed to attend our home church and Sunday School then hike about 4 miles at the new nature preserve with Barry and Donna.