Tag: travel

Missionaries and Mules

Friday, October 3, 2025

On Friday September 19, we left Sumatanga and drove to Shelbyville, TN, to the Tennessee Walking Horse Celebration Arena, the site of our 2025 NOMADS Annual Meeting.  For the next week we had a good time visiting with old friends and making new friends.  It was a small group but those who attended had a good time.  The schedule was similar to the past meetings with things kicking off with Sunday morning worship, and Sunday evening memorial service. Sunday afternoon there were some meetings and leader training as well as First Timer, New Member and Alumni get together.

Monday the work for the charity auction which took place on Tuesday began. We had a very successful auction to raise funds for projects. Monday was also the day that NOMADS had the opportunity to visit and work at the Bible and Literature Missionary Foundation.  Some of the NOMADS helped to collate bibles in the Tagalog language, that were destined for the Philippines.  BLMF ships Bibles around the world at no cost to the receiver. They work to provide a copy of God’s word for every person in need on the foreign mission field.

The Tuesday session began with the presentation of the colors by some of our veterans.  Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday were business meeting with reports from the Board members and various classes available.  We had a great potluck dinner and entertainment Wednesday evening and a wonderful catered meal and choir concert Thursday evening.  The choir always does such a great job.

Most of the NOMADS departed Friday morning.  Always a bittersweet time.  We were able to stay and extra day in Shelbyville which allowed us to watch some of the mule and donkey shows that were at the Walking Horse Arena on Friday and Saturday.

Miniature Donkey Competition Winner

We left about noon on Saturday and drove to Salt Lick Creek Campground and spent 3 nights there to rest a little.  This was a great COE park.  Clean, quiet, and peaceful.  We would definitely stay here again.

Tuesday arrived and that meant it was time to head to Asheville, NC to get ready for another NOMADS Disaster Rebuild project.  Please be praying for us as we begin this project, that everyone will arrive safely and we will be able to be the hands and feet of Christ while trying to improve the lives of some folks that have had it really hard since Hurricane Helene struck a year ago. There is still so much work to be done.  Stay safe everyone!

Back in the South

Friday, September 26, 2025

Goodness.  It’s been a month since we blogged anything.  Let’s see if we can get you caught up.  We returned to Randy and Debra’s on Sunday, August 24th.  We spent the next week getting caught up with each other and enjoyed a visit to Hopelands Gardens in Aiken, SC.  Great gardens if you are ever in the area.  There are huge 100 year old oak and magnolia trees on the 14 acre estate.  Another place we should have visited earlier.  We had a traditional Labor Day of cooking on the grill and making home made ice cream.

After that we were concerned that BB needed some exercise, so on September 2nd we drove BB to Cades Cove in Smokey Mountains National Park.  We always enjoy our time at Cades Cove.  There are no hookups but that’s fine with us for a few days.  We rode our bikes around the loop on Wednesday when it is closed to vehicular traffic and the other days we drove the loop multiple times.  We saw eight bears during our time there – always exciting.  We knew it was going to be a good visit when there were two bears in the woods across the road from our camp site when we arrived.  We enjoyed our week of hiking and relaxing and returned to South Carolina on Sunday refreshed and BB was in good shape.

On September 11th we drove Fred back to Camp Sumatanga in Alabama.  We had doctor and dentist appointments and some business to handle and in between doctor visits we enjoyed visiting with friends.  One day we helped friends with building a deck and another day we enjoyed hiking at Big Canoe Creek Nature Center in Springville. Great hiking!  All was well with the medical stuff and we enjoyed the peaceful time at Sumatanga.  So good to attend our church and visit with friends.  It had been too long since we had been back to Alabama. We will try to do better.  Until next time, stay safe!

Vermont Disaster Rebuild – Our Week 6

Wednesday, August 27, 2025

Our last week in Vermont.  On Saturday, we were blessed with the wonderful news that Sally and Chester were going to work with us for another few days. Much needed help as we were committed to having Scott’s house in the dry by the end of the day Thursday.   Our new team members for next week were not arriving until Sunday so we had Saturday free to explore.  We returned to the Montpelier farmer’s market to get more fresh veggies.  We also learned that Montpelier is the smallest US state capital.  It really is small.  Next we drove through the mountains to Lake Willoughby in Westmore, VT.  Some locals told us that this was the prettiest place in Vermont.  It was beautiful but many, many other people were enjoying the lake this weekend.  It reminded us of Alaska and everyone’s rush to have one last beautiful weekend prior to the short summer season beginning to come to an end.  Very surprising to us, was that the leaves were beginning to change. Up in the mountains there were some beautiful reds and yellows.  We had a relaxing day enjoying the Vermont mountains.

Sunday, we welcomed Chris and Laura to the team.  We have worked with them previously and were excited to have their help on our tiny home build.  Monday morning the six of us returned to Scott’s new home.  We began the day by installing the sheathing on the walls, building the ridge beam and began installing the rafters.  We completed all these items on Tuesday.  Wednesday, we began installing the house wrap, roof sheathing and underlayment.  On Thursday, Stan and Jennie (the incoming team leaders) joined us to help complete those items.  The team had the house in the dry by lunch Thursday.  What an accomplishment!  Two weeks of hard work by the teams and Scott and he has a new home that is now dry.  We spent the afternoon with Stan and Jennie and the project coordinator, Rob, and are confident we are leaving the project in good hands. The next teams (3 weeks) will complete the home before the cold and snowy Vermont winter arrives.  What a blessing!

It was such a pleasure to work with our teams to help Scott build his tiny house the past two weeks. Scott became an honorary team member because he worked as hard or harder than the rest of us on his home.  We will miss him.  As is customary, we had dinner out Thursday evening, enjoying a meal at Nacho Mama. Great meal and fellowship.

Back at the camp, we readied Fred for the long trip back to South Carolina.  We were sad to say goodbye to all our NOMADS friends but hope to see them again soon.

We pointed Fred southward at 8:30 Friday morning, staying at Harvest Hosts Friday and Saturday nights, before arriving at Randy and Debra’s home in SC about 4:30 Sunday afternoon.  It was a long drive, but it was very good to be back for another visit.

Vermont Disaster Rebuild – Our Week 3

August 03, 2025

The NOMADS Vermont Disaster Rebuild team is still enjoying our time in Vermont.  We had some rain and some hot days this week but all in all a good week.  On Friday we had to say “see you at annual meeting” to Larry and Jean.  Thanks, Larry and Jean for all your hard work!  On Saturday we were blessed to have Pam and Jeff join us for their first disaster rebuild project.  We certainly hope it will not be their last as they were such an asset to the team. Sunday we all went to West Danville UMC together and Tammy and Rodney sang the prelude for the service, and the team sang the postlude.  It is such a sweet and welcoming little church.  After church we had a team brunch back at the campground where we all pitched in various items.  Oh, so good!

Monday we all returned to Sally’s house.  With all nine of us there, there was not a room untouched by NOMADS and lots of progress was made.  The highlight of the week was the Bible presentation to Rosa on Monday afternoon.  This was a special time for all.

The remainder of the week we continued at Sally’s with the highlight being the completion of the kitchen, with the installation of the stove, range hood, sink and butcher block countertops.  This family had been without these amenities for over a year.  Washed dishes in the bathroom for over a year and had only a microwave for cooking.  Sometimes we forget just how blessed we are. Lord, help us to remember and be grateful!  A lot was accomplished this week.  The house is livable again with mostly smaller items not quite completed.

Friday morning, Max and Anne moved to a private RV park for the next week.  Sugar Ridge RV Village is only about 15 minutes from the church camp, but we are taking next week off and will then return to lead two more weeks of the DR.  We plan to get some rest and do some touring while we are off.

Friday evening those of us still in Vermont – Tammy and Rodney, Herman and Janis and the two of us, had reservations for “Lobstah on the Lake” dinner cruise on the Spirit of Ethan Allen that cruises Lake Champlain.  We had never been to Burlington or been on Lake Champlain.  Thanks to Tammy for recommending the cruise and arranging our trip.  We enjoyed the company, cruising Lake Champlain, and the food!  It was a really nice sunset and peaceful evening.  Great way to begin our week off.

Saturday morning, we hiked to the Danville Community Fair in “downtown” Danville.  We had read on a sign that it was only 1.4 miles from Sugar Ridge on the rail trail, so a walk seemed a good idea since we wouldn’t have to worry about parking.  It was actually 3 miles to the fair.  Oh, well.  We got our steps – total of 8 miles and 22,276 steps for the day.  It was a nice community fair and we did make a few purchases of food items. 

Today, Sunday, we took it easy.  Everyone stay safe and remember to shine like Jesus wherever you go.