lester memorial – RVing With a Purpose

Sunday, May 4, 2025

Our last post left us at Camp Sumatanga for Easter weekend. Easter morning we were up at 4:00 am, on the road by 5:00 am and celebrated the resurrection of our Lord and Savior with our Lester Memorial family at 6:00 am on the mountain above Oneonta at Palisades Park. It was a wonderful service and beautiful sunrise. Such a great way to start Resurrection Sunday.

This is what we saw as we were leaving the camp on Easter morning.

Lester Memorial’s Sonrise Service for Easter 2025

For our third week working at Camp Sumatanga we were so blessed! Friday of Holy Week our good friends and fellow NOMADS Mariel and Shannon joined us. On Sunday afternoon two more good friends and NOMADS, Rita and Dave, joined us. We also had great help from Barry and Donna and Emily. First, there was NO water leak Monday morning! We were able to resume work on Cabin 5 with Barry, Donna, Mariel, Anne, Max, and Rita worked on painting the exterior since Monday would be our only dry day. Shannon and Dave did some framing work for the showers and vents, built some benches, and repaired drywall in the old section of the cabin. On Thursday Dave, Shannon, Max, Anne, and Barry insulated the walls and ceilings.

With the weather forecast for the week, we decided to get some outside painting done while we could.

We got about 80% of the new walls painted before we had to stop because of rain.

Dave and Shannon boxing in vent old pipe

Dave and Shannon building a wall for a dressing area

We also continued to work in the girl’s staff hut. By the end of the week Donna, Barry, Rita, Mariel, Anne and Emily had all six bedrooms ceiling, walls and closets painted along with the hallway and most of the trim. The bathroom ceilings were also painted. The old water heaters were removed. Max and Anne rebuilt and insulated part of the front wall of the hut and finished the repair of the damaged subfloor in the front room. Max and Barry also worked on rough-in electrical in Cabin 7. It was a very busy week with a lot accomplished for the camp. Most importantly, everyone stayed safe! Big thank you to all who helped!!

… and Mariel painted the in the girl’s staff hut …

Finishing up our time with a little more work in the girl’s staff hut

The team also handled a few other tasks, such a hanging some new flags at the office …

… and repairing the wall of the nurse hut.

Thursday night dinner with our NOMADS helpers joined by two other NOMADS friends, Dave and Carol, along with two friends of theirs.

Always a few trillia along the Lake Trail this time of year …

… and the native azalea was especially pretty this year.

We returned to Johnston, SC after church on Sunday and have spent the past week with Randy and Debra. Randy received a great report from his oncologist on Wednesday so it’s been a great week for us. If things go as planned we will be doing some westward travel with Randy and Debra this next week.

Sunday, April 13, 2025

We arrived in Gallant, AL at Camp Sumatanga on Friday afternoon, April 4. It was an uneventful drive from Red Bay and we were fortunate to get out ahead of the storms. Saturday, we had a list of errands to run. It reminded us of when we were still working, trying to get everything else done on Saturday. Retirement is so good! Sunday we were blessed to be able to return to Lester Memorial again as we do so much prefer in person worship. We are very thankful for being able to stream the services when we are out of town but in person is definitely the best.

Monday morning Barry joined us to begin work at the camp. Our first priority is the completion of the remodeling of Cabin 5 as it is needed for summer camp. Cabin 7 is also being remodeled but is not needed quite as soon. Some of you may remember that this time last year we were here with a NOMADS team and demolished the old bathrooms in these two cabins (link to last year’s project). Since then the camp contracted to extend the concrete slabs, frame in new bathrooms and install new metal roofs. This year’s spring NOMADS project was cancelled for lack of sign-ups. (We need more new members – hint, hint.) We had a few weeks available and decided to spend them here.

Monday and Tuesday the roofers were still working on the cabins and we certainly didn’t want to be in their way so we were sent to start on the girl’s staff hut (with a few detours along the way). It needs lots of love but we are making progress. Barry did lots of cleaning, while Anne worked on some dry wall and Max worked on some flooring. On Tuesday, John from our church joined us and he and Barry replaced the leaking vent turbine on the roof. Barry’s life before retirement was also very helpful because he was able to repair the camps mini excavator. We also repaired a deck on Cabin 1.

First thing Monday morning the staff found out the 70,000 gallon water tank was empty. After some searching they found water shooting up out of the ground near one of the buildings. Barry was able to quickly fix the problem once the staff got him the parts.

New subfloor was in place when we moved over to work on Cabin 5.

The ceiling was damaged under the vent turbine

Anne carefully repairing the wall around the electrical panel

We did a quick patch job on Cabin 1 deck because it was rented out for the weekend.

After the roofers finished their work, we began concentrating on Cabin 5 and assisting the plumber with roughing in the plumbing. We also were able to get a lot of work done on the plumbing rough in on Cabin 7. On Friday, Donna joined us and we began the electrical rough in on Cabin 5. It was a good week, and we are enjoying being back with friends at Sumatanga and attending our church in person.