RVing With a Purpose

Monday, April 3, 2017

We had WHOLE LOT OF RAIN last night and today. There was some thunder and lightning but mostly rain. It was really pouring this morning at devotional time so we met in the Retreat Center and as we were leaving the camp ground we spotted some of the ducks swimming in the giant puddles instead of the lake. Too funny! We we drove over to pool camp after devotion, there was more water coming over the falls into the old pool than we have ever seen. Last fall when we were here there was almost no water flowing and it was a stagnant pool of water. Gorgeous today!!

When we are leaders, we always like to be responsible for devotion the first and last day so today was our day. Interesting, we had put a devotion together a week or two ago about first responders and how we can all be responders for God and our “first response” should be to pray and then to act. It was based on the story of the good Samaritan in Luke 10:29-37. We decided to go ahead with our devotion as planned even though the team heard this scripture preached on yesterday. Sometimes we need to hear things more than once to really get God’s message.

After devotion, we went to work. We will be doing a little upgrade to the pool camp kitchen. There was a lot of moving of appliances etc. in preparation for redoing the floor. Today it was pressure washed and scrubbed with a floor buffer and now we are awaiting the final decision on if they want it painted or tiled or some other surface applied. There are also a couple of walls to be built in the kitchen. The team also worked at Little Brown. Little Brown is the first building you see when you come into camp and is now the summer camp office. There was a new door to cut in, some additional removal of tile flooring, and sorting and organization of the worship supplies – candles, linens, and other items used in making nice worship settings.

Tonight the camp provided us with a lovely “Welcome to Sumatanga Dinner.” Lee Padgett, camp director and his wife Debbie, Bishop of our North Alabama Conference, joined us as well as Dennis and Amanda. What a wonderful group of people. They are a joy to work with.

As usual the team has really come together even though this was our first day of work. Great group to work with! We all just pray that God blesses our efforts so that we may accomplish what he wants done in this place.

Sunday, April 2, 2017

Wow! Another wonderful spring day. It was a little foggy early today and a little cool. Had to run the heat pump this morning. The team left for church at 7:20. We headed to Springville First United Methodist Church for the 8:00 am bluegrass service. The service is a regular worship service, but with the music being of the bluegrass genre. The musicians are quite talented. They have written some of the songs, some of which you would probably recognize. You could tell the congregation really enjoyed the service. They were very welcoming to us. Since everyone needed to go to Walmart we had breakfast at the Waffle House that is located on the same property as Walmart. They were very crowded and it was quite noisy making it difficult to have conversation.

After shopping it was back to the campground for Sunday afternoon naps for some and hiking and biking for others. Just a few minutes after parking the car we went back outside and were surprised by ducks resting under the rear of the car. They really weren’t bothered by us but we were sure glad we didn’t jump in the car and back up. We have not seen them come up into the campground and get under the vehicles before.

We cooked a peach cobbler to have for the 6:00 pm team meeting, the first official activity of this project. There is always a time of sharing to start to get to know the team and then some paperwork and safety items to cover. Dennis, the facilities manager, met with us and went over the top five items he hopes we complete. Don’t think we will have any problems completing those items but we will see what else comes up. Hope everyone has a good week.

Saturday, April 1, 2017

Today was another glorious spring day in Alabama. We started the morning with a 2 mile hike/walk on the Lake Trail.

What a great way to start the day. After breakfast we worked to cordon off the camp sites because we learned there would be a wedding here at the McBee pavilion which is right at the campground. We were concerned that we would not be able to get the incoming rigs parked if wedding guests parked blocking the sites. Mid-morning the wedding planner arrived and we learned it would be a 4:00 wedding.

Fortunately all our team members were able to arrive by 3:00 so we were able to get everyone parked before the wedding began. It was so great to see Bill and Marty again and to meet Patrick, James and Harriet. Most importantly we are so thankful for safe travels for them all. They all had uneventful travel days. Thank you Lord!! All our chicks are in the barn and we are very happy. We can relax now. We were all making jokes about crashing the reception which of course we did not, but after the reception was over the caterer gave the team a large tray of barbeque pork, chicken salad and rolls. Wow. It is very good and we have plenty to eat for next week.

The team decided that they would like to attend the early (8:00 am) bluegrass service at Springville UMC in the morning. After that there will probably be a brunch stop and a Walmart stop for most. We will see what people want to do tomorrow afternoon. Don’t forget, we all need to be in prayer for our church services and pastors. Go to services tomorrow looking forward to the opportunity to worship. It’s about our Lord, not about us.

 

Friday, March 31, 2017

It’s the weekend!! Hope you all take time to get outside and walk, ride a bike, take a hike or jog and just enjoy the beautiful world. It was a wonderful spring day today. Fortunately, all the bad weather we were expecting last night fell apart and we just had a little light rain so we had a restful night. Today Anne left at 6:00 to make the drive to Tuscaloosa. It was an uneventful and easy drive. It was a long day and hopefully Anne’s mom will be feeling better soon. Max stayed at Sumatanga to prepare for our project and be here to great our first team member on his arrival today. Richard was at Cedartown with us, but since we left after two days we didn’t get to know him very well. Looking forward to spending more time with him this time around. He arrived shortly after lunch so he missed the messy nachos served at lunch. Richard likes what he has seen of Sumatanga and we are sure the rest of the team will enjoy their time here. None of our team has been here before so it will be fun seeing things thru their eyes. Sumatanga is always pretty in the spring. Compared to last fall when we were in extreme drought – the lake is really pretty.

While walking the Lake Trail this evening we saw where the new zipline will cross the lake. We hope to get to try it sometime.

Tomorrow everyone else should be arriving so we will be here to help them get parked and settled in. Looking forward to getting started.