Tag: nomads

Start of our Spring 2025 Road Trip

Sunday, May 11, 2025

Tuesday, May 6 was the official beginning of our Spring Road Trip 2025.  If things go as planned, this will truly be a road trip.  There will be lots of driving, lots of miles covered and not as much moseying along at a casual pace as our recent vacations.  Tuesday, we drove to Asheville, NC to visit with the volunteer coordinator for the NOMADS disaster rebuilding project we will be leading in the fall.  We met with Hannah at the church that will be providing our parking sites.  The church is building camping sites on their property for people impacted by Hurricane Helene and will be including six sites for NOMADS to use.  This should be a great opportunity for us to serve in a beautiful location while working to get families back into their homes.

From Asheville, we drove to Barbourville, KY to visit the Constructors For Christ 2025 construction site.  We will be helping to build the East Barbourville Baptist Church’s new sanctuary and perhaps build out some Sunday School classrooms.  Since it was not too far off our route, we decided to take a quick look at the site and see the town.  We arrived too late to see anyone at the church but got to take some pictures, try one of the local diners, check out the grocery stores, and the RV park we will be using. We also boondocked at the local WalMart (with permission).  We are really looking forward to this project.  This will be the 50th  year Constructors has provided 5-6 weeks of labor to assist churches with their building needs.  What a great ministry this organization has led.  It’s an honor to work and serve with them and we look forward to seeing all our Constructor friends in June.  We traveled 336 miles today.

After a good night of sleep,  on May 7, we continued driving northwest.  We stopped at King Donut in London, KY for breakfast pastries and then continued to Big Bone Lick State Historic Park in Union, KY.  This is a smaller state park but is in a beautiful setting and bills itself as “the birthplace of American paleontology.” We would definitely stay here again.  The first sight we were assigned, we couldn’t get level.  So the very helpful, “off duty” camp host quickly changed our site to one that was level and located immediately behind Randy and Debra.  We spent the afternoon exploring the park and waiting for Randy and Debra to arrive.  Another 171 miles traveled.

Third Week At Sumatanga

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.

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. 

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!!

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.

Week Two – Déjà vu

Saturday, April 19, 2025

Hope you have had a wonderful Holy Week. As we share wonderful meals and Easter egg hunts with family and friends, remember the sacrifice of our Lord and Savior and tomorrow we celebrate our RISEN SAVIOR on Resurrection Sunday.  Thank You, Jesus!!

Same song, second verse.  Monday morning we were leaving the campground to go back to work on Cabins 5 and 7 at Pool Camp when we heard on the radio that there must be another big leak somewhere in the water system.  We headed back to the retreat center and yes there was water flowing like a river.  The guys started digging mud and bailing water.  Before they could get the water system shut down, we watched the ground cave in like a sink hole.  The repair from last week was still perfect but there were two other leaks further on down the line.  Monday was spent repairing those leaks.  Tuesday morning, after assuring the repairs held overnight, the big hole was covered and we were back working on Cabins 5 and 7 for the remainder of the week.  Hopefully there will not be another leak this Monday.  By the way, generally it’s not advisable to drive around the back to the retreat centers.  There are all kinds of pipes and lines back there. It’s much better to park in the parking spaces provided.

Then we brought in the mini-excavator.

Cabins 5 & 7 are identical so even though cabin 5 is top priority, we are also working on 7 based on where the plumber needs us to help out and what supplies we have.  We also did some additional cleaning and repairs in the staff hut. 

We are excited because Friday some NOMADS friends, Shannon and Mariel, arrived at the camp to work with us next week.  We have Dave and Rita also NOMADS friends that will be arriving on Sunday afternoon.  Donna and Barry also plan to return for most of the week, so we hope to make a lot more progress next week. 

We have a neighbor in the campground who gets really nervous when we walk by her site.

First Week Back at Sumatanga

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.

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.