RVing With a Purpose

Monday, June 19, 2017

Today was an amazing day. Max, Randy and David left for work at 5:30 this morning. We forgot to mention earlier that David and Cecelia, friends of Randy and Debra from North Augusta, have joined us at the Constructors project this year. They also have a motorhome and arrived Saturday afternoon and are parked right next to us. We are really enjoying getting to know them. So, the guys can go to work together early and the girls can ride together and go to the job site later in the morning. The weathermen predicted 70% chance of storms today but they were WRONG!! It did start raining on the girls at the campground at 6:03 but not the guys on the mountain in Rosalie. To be honest they did get wet about 8:30 and they did stop work for a short time but there were NO storms today. The temperature was lower than it was Saturday and the guys accomplished an amazing amount of work. All the exterior walls of the new building are now up and a few of the interior walls are up. It was truly wonderful to see the transformation. There were about 25-30 people working on the job site and then of course another 25 or more working to prepare the three meals for the day and they were 3 good meals. Its so much fun to see everyone working together – the younger ones being mentored by the older guys and gals. Even the children get in on the mission by serving the building crew Popsicles and snow cones. Anne and Debra and Cecelia’s team of 7, prepared dinner tonight. It was a good meal of ham, sweet potatoes, marinated salad, green salad, squash casserole, English peas, cantaloupe, watermelon, dessert of coconut cake and other cakes, rolls. The folks that had been working on the job site were really hungry so there were not many leftovers to put away at the end of the day. We are now all back to the RVs and really tired but know that it was a really great day! We will start it all over again at 4:30 in the morning.

Sunday, June 18, 2017

It was another nice day in Rosalie, AL. We went to church at Rosalie Baptist Church, a small rural church on top of the mountain above Scottsboro, AL. For those of you familiar with 4-part harmony and Fa-So-La singing, Rosalie uses a hymnal with shaped notes and the congregation definitely knew how to sing 4-part harmony. They also have a young girl with a beautiful voice who sang “The Anchor Holds” for special music. The young lady has quite a voice. The message was from Daniel 3, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego and the fiery furnace. The pastor challenged the fathers and all the men of the church to be the leaders in their household and their community and take a stand for God as did the men thrown into the furnace.

After church about 15 of us drove back to Hollywood to Mud Creek Fishing Camp and Bar-B-Que. Randy had read some reviews online so we decided to give it a try. It was located way out in the middle of no where. When we arrived we knew the food must be great because the parking lot was full and people were waiting outside. We had to wait about 30 minutes for a table but wow was it worth it. The specialties are fried catfish and barbeque both of which were very good. We would definitely go back there. It was then time for a Sunday afternoon nap and then back to the church.

The church members provided snacks, there was a short message from the pastor and then we had our opening meeting. We have a good crowd of workers – don’t have the number yet but appears to be a few more than last year. We did all the necessary paperwork, and reviewed procedures and then the cooks met to plan the meals. While the cooks were making plans some of the guys were outside with a drone flying over the slab. The forecast of tomorrow is not good – rain – but the work will start at 6:00am, hopefully, raising walls. Please keep the entire team in your prayers for a safe week.

 

 

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Saturday, June 17, 2017

The forecast was for some rain today but we had heavy fog early then it was a mostly sunny, hot day. The guys got up, had breakfast and headed out to Rosalie Baptist Church to start work at 8:00. The girls got to stay home a couple more hours and visit and enjoy a cup of coffee. The drive to the church is 23 miles and takes about 25 minutes.

The guys started today with a blank slab and worked to put down the exterior wall sill plates and marked the interior walls on the slab. It’s always the small Saturday crew’s goal to have it so the full crew can start building walls Monday morning at 6:00. Today they also opened up all the tool trailers and checked equipment, assembled saws and other general activities necessary to the start of the project.

The girls spent the morning and part of the afternoon setting up the “store” of Constructors for Christ merchandise. That means sorting and folding lots and lots of t-shirts as well as hats, jackets, mugs, cook books, cooking and nail aprons and back packs. Last year Debra and Anne were in charge of the store. It is no small task.

The church provided us with lunch and dinner tonight. That was an unexpected treat. Usually no meals are provided on Saturday since the project doesn’t officially start until Sunday night at the 6:00 pm meeting. Thank you Rosalie church family for your warm hospitality.

A lot was accomplished today. Everyone was safe. Everyone ended the day really tired. It was a good day.

Don’t forget to be praying for tomorrow’s services and your pastors.

Friday, June 16, 2017

Sorry we sort of left you hanging. Yes, we brought our new motor home home last Friday. We had a couple of little things to be adjusted before we said goodbye to all the great people at Sherman RV and made our trip home. It was a very, very busy week after that. Our niece and nephew Phillip and Lauren from South Carolina actually arrived at our house while we were at Sherman last Thursday and stayed the weekend with us. We so enjoyed having them and their two beautiful daughters, Dorothy age 3 and Tabitha, 5 months.  Hope to see them again soon.  After they left on Sunday, we began trying to sort through all the boxes and load the motor home. It was a challenge. While the new motor home actually has more storage space it is quite different so now items are located in different locations than before. We now know we loaded things but can’t remember exactly where we put them. Oh well, we will find it all eventually. We also spent Monday continuing to go through all the stuff we hurriedly packed when we sold FRED 1. We purchased additional storage containers and packed and loaded the basement. Tuesday we went back to Atlanta to prepare to move Anne’s mom back to Tuscaloosa to Aspire Rehabilitation. Aspire is considered a step down from the rehab hospital. We moved her Wednesday.  Mama Ruby will continue to receive therapy for the broken leg and stroke for the next several weeks. Thursday was then the day for our routine packing of the motor home for a mission trip – all the clothes, food etc.

 

Today was the day to begin our first trip in our new rig – really exciting. It was a short drive from Remlap to Hollywood. That is Hollywood, AL which is about five miles from Scottsboro, AL. The forecast was not that great but we had a beautiful sunny drive by Lake Guntersville, and the Tennessee river. Nice part of our state. We will be staying in Hollywood at Bellefonte Storage and RV Park until next Friday. We will be working in Pisgah, AL at the Rosalie Baptist Church with the Constructors for Christ. Rosalie suffered significant damage from a tornado last November. We especially love doing the Constructors project each year because Max’s brother Randy and his wife Debra stay with us in the motor home for the week as we work together on the project. It is always a great week of work and visiting and we look forward to another one this year. We start work at 8:00 in the morning. Check back tomorrow for pictures of day one.