Tag: volunteering

Asheville, NC Disaster Rebuild – Week 1

Tuesday October 14, 2025

When we last posted, we had just arrived at the Covenant Community Church RV Village in Asheville, NC. Due to tremendous shortage of affordable housing after Hurricane Helene struck, the church has installed 36 RV sites on their property.  Six of the sites were designated for volunteer relief workers such as NOMADS.  The remainder of the sites are for displaced residents.  Most of the people in the village lost everything, home, cars, and often their land.  It all washed away.  We were very impressed by the loving assistance the church has showered on the community. The RVs, mostly travel trailers have been donated to the church or furnished by the UMC conference.  Some of the sites saved for volunteers had electrical problems when we first arrived so we spent the next two days running our generator when needed.  The site manager was a great help and we determined the problem but then had to wait for the electrician to come change out the GFCI breakers in those sites. After that was done, all has been great.

Most of you have probably seen news stories of all the damage that has occurred in North Carolina as a result of Hurricane Helene in September of 2024.  It was and is worse than we saw on TV.  There was over 14 inches of rain which caused catastrophic flooding and loss of life.  It will take many more years for this part of NC to recover. Hopefully NOMADS will be able to help with the healing process for some of the people.

Saturday, we welcomed Anne and Dale to the RV Village at the Covenant Community Church.  Angela and Jake arrived Sunday afternoon.  The six of us began work on Sandy’s home in the Waynesville area on Monday morning. Sandy had a lot of roof damage which was repaired prior to our arrival.  We are now working to repair the interior of her home – drywall work, and flooring.  We returned to work on her house on Thursday.  It will take several more days to complete all of the work.  We have enjoyed getting to know Sandy.  She has chickens in her backyard and has given the team two dozen eggs this week.

Tuesday and part of Wednesday we were tasked with installing the insulation in a home in the Swannanoa area.  A number of homes in this area have interesting patches in the roofs.  We were told that the families in these homes climbed into their attic, cut their way out, and climbed onto their roof to await a water rescue.  There are visible water lines above the tops of windows on numerous homes.  There is so very much work to be done.  We are just beginning.

Our team is great!  We are accomplishing a lot of work.  Covenant Community Church could not have been more welcoming and helpful.  Our teams will enjoy their time here at the RV Village. In our off time some are enjoying the sites around Asheville, fly fishing, and the beautiful fall leaves on the Blue Ridge Parkway.  Please remember our teams and all the families struggling to recover from the storm in your prayers.

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.