RVing With a Purpose

Saturday, March 11, 2017

Today we had a much needed quiet morning. There was some clean up work to be done around the campground and some fire wood to cut (and calves to chase back to their pasture). Later we made a quick grocery store run. Then there were several hours doing book work and tax returns and working on some other projects. Shelia and Frank arrived safely this afternoon. It was great to see them again. We last saw them at Vashti Center in Thomasville, GA in the fall of 2015. They have spent the winter in Florida and are working their way back north. Later we all went out to dinner. We first tried to go to the Pizza Farm, out in the middle of no where near Rockmart, GA. We thought we were going early – 5:00.  They don’t open until 4:30.  The parking lot was completely full and when we checked in it was going to be a one hour wait.  We decided to try somewhere else and went to El Nopal Mexican restaurant back in Rockmart. We were very pleased. The food and service were good even with 10 people and it was very reasonably priced. We wouldn’t mind going back there because there were several more items we would like to try. Sorry we forgot to take our phones, so no pictures of food or the group. We can’t remember when we ever left both phones at home. Fortunately, there were no messages of missed calls then we returned. Guess we are getting old. It is very cold tonight – with some of the white stuff in the forecast, but we really don’t expect any travel problems. Hope you are having a nice weekend and check back tomorrow. We will try to have some pics – maybe of some of the white stuff? Don’t forget to be in prayer for your churches and pastors. Later.

Friday, March 10, 2017

Sorry to leave you hanging, but this was a very busy week. After dentist visits Monday, Anne left at 4:30 Tuesday morning for Atlanta to be with her brother Jim and sister-in-law Marguerite who was having a procedure on her kidneys. Traffic was horrible! Max stayed in Alabama to take his Aunt Helen for some skin cancer surgery. Wednesday morning Anne drove home and took Juno to have some GI testing done. Thursday we drove to Tuscaloosa to see Anne’s Mom and back to Trussville to see Aunt Jean. That brings us to today. Whew!

Today we awoke early to a beautiful spring day. We enjoyed looking out at the trees and bushes putting on blossoms and new leaves. We got everything (we hope) loaded into FRED by about 10:00, stopped by Helen’s to check her surgery site (looks great). While there we picked a few of this spring’s last jonquils to take with us.

Then we headed to Cedartown, GA about 10:45. We stopped in Allgood to top off on fuel since we don’t like to park FRED for 3 weeks with less than ½ tank of diesel. Cedartown is only about a 90 mile drive. The storms from last night were gone and it was a beautiful day to drive the state highways. It was a bit windy at times. Our team leader had asked those that could to arrive on Friday rather than Saturday to help clean up the campground. When we arrived almost everyone was here. It was so great to see Jim and Mary Jo our team leaders, Janet and Harry, and Joyce and Ken. We also met Richard briefly. Sheila and Frank should arrive tomorrow. This should be such a fun project because we already know and love everyone. It’s also going to be a good deal of demolition which is also fun. After getting FRED set up, we started visiting and getting caught up with everyone. Good times.! The campground is right beside the Silver Comet Trail and we will probably be riding on it tomorrow. We look out our front windshield and can see people riding by on the trail. Between the campground and the trail is a pasture for cows – and deer and turkey. Well today the cows preferred being with us rather than in their pasture so we had a round up to get them back in their pastures. Of course, when the young ones can step back into the pasture thru the barbed wire fence rather than going thru the gate we suspect that keeping then away from the campsites may be a lost cause. The owners did return later in the afternoon to work on the fence so maybe we won’t wake up to lots of surprises left for us to step in in the morning. For supper we had a fire and grilled some sliders, and had beans, black beans and rice, chips, salsa, brownies, ice cream, s’mores (made with peeps), and probably other things we are too stuffed to remember. Anyway, it’s wonderful to be back at the Cedartown’s Murphy Harpst Children’s Center and we look forward to accomplishing a lot for them.

Sunday March 5, 2017

This cross greeted us when we arrived at our church this morning. In the early morning hours of Sunday, January 22nd, while we were between NOMADS projects, the City of Oneonta, Alabama was hit by strong winds that caused damaged to many homes and buildings. Lester Memorial UMC was one of those damaged.

Many people from the church and community met that morning to cleanup as much as possible around the church and surrounding homes. Of the many trees blown down one large one was in the church parking lot. The Blount Countian, our local newspaper, published an article by Richard Thorne about how the cross on the stump came to be:

A cross carved from a tree trunk sits by the parking lot of Lester Memorial United Methodist Church. The old oak tree was felled by a storm in February [sic] and Blount County resident Fred McCarl offered to clean up the tree for the wood. When he finished, he says he was inspired to carve the cross from the remaining stump. McCarl wrote about the project, ‘When we carve away all the bad things from around us, we can see the beauty that is on the inside. I pray the cross continues to make an impact on many others.’

It was really neat to see the cross for the first time this morning. It reminded us of all the crosses at Storm Mountain Center in South Dakota where we did several weeks of NOMADS drop-in work in 2014 when we were in route to and from Alaska. You can read about it at Alaska 2014 – Day 12: Trail Clearing at Storm Mountain Center. Good memories of Storm Mountain and our friends there.

Hope you have a great Monday.