CAMPERS A COMMIN'

There is a group of campers coming on Tuesday and Monday is a holiday.  Better clean up today and be sure to  be ready.

With the help of my new friend and helper Cory Naas we were able to rake and pick up a lot of leaves.

Later, brother Cameron joined us.

See what I mean "A LOT OF LEAVES".

Welcome to Green Forest

We had a relatively uneventful trip from Dothan to Green Forest, AR.  We had to fight a 25-30 MPH crosswind for the first 75 miles but then we had pretty smooth sailing.

We spent a night at Walmart in Oxford, AL and one night at Harrison, AR.  While we were at the later a front came through and dropped a little rain.  Then the sun popped out and God gave us a beautiful double rainbow to watch.  Awesome!

 Thursday morning we arrived at Woodland Acres Bible Camp which is situated between Alpena and Green Forest, AR.  When we left Dothan it was 95 F and when we arrived at the camp it was 55.  It got clear up to 60 today.  In the past two weeks they have had two feet of rain and it really shows.  Everything is green and waterlogged.

This is the camp office and is only a few feet from our new temporary home.

Billie always makes it a priority to make the place homey and beautiful.  We did a little landscaping and mowed the grass and wallaa, home.

Gotta just move a few more rocks!

This is really a beautiful setting.  We are supposed to start work Monday, but of course Monday is Memorial Day so there probably won't b e a lot done until Tuesday.

God is so good!

All work and no play---you know the rest.

God has blessed us with a couple days off and we took advantage of the fact that we are only 80 miles from the beach at Panama City Beach.  It is really beautiful here.  We are currently sitting on the beach and peering out over the beauty God created for us.

The gulf is up somewhat today compared to yesterday when we arrived.  The waves are high enough that they are only a couple feet from our chairs.

A dad plays with his son as the waves crash in.

The sun is encraoching on our chairs and we will soon need to move the umbrella.

But, all in all, it is so beautiful in the water when you have someone to share it.

Love you all.

The project at Dothan Community Church is over!

We have reached the end of the third project work week and are making plans to move to NW Arkansas.  This has been a wonderful experience as this is a very Spirit led congregation and they paid us a great compliment at the close of the prayer meeting last night, blessing us with their love.  Here is a bit more of the work we were able to complete.

The rooms on the west side of the addition will contain a sink (you can see the drain of 2 sinks and the cold water line) and in the center of the picture is a stand pipe which leads several hundred feet underground to the maintenance shed.

This is a line to a new outside faucet.

This shows the drain lines for the water closets (stools) in the girls bathroom and wherever there is a drain there must be a water supply.  That is what we supplied this week.

Since they are intending to have another pair of bathrooms with showers on the second floor, we had to snake a 2 inch water line up through all of the drain lines to supply water to the second floor.

This is a shot of the back side of the boys bathroom.

This is a shot of lighting panel one. When we arrived there was a blank box hanging on the wall.  We installed the breakers and wiring.

Here is lighting panel two.

This is the main distribution panel.  This, too, was a blank box.  The wires coming into this panel are as big around as Billie's wrist.  They were tough getting bent into place.

Since we are only 70 miles from the gulf, we plan to take a couple of days off and go to the beach.  We will share pictures from there later.

What a lovely group of people!

We have so enjoyed being with and worshipping with the people at DCC.  Sunday was a great, thought provoking and prayerful service and Billie has really been blessed working with the folks at the Hope Center.

Wiregrass refers to a type of grass which is native to south central Alabama.  The Hope Center is a crisis pregnancy center where Christian counseling is offered and material needs are met.

The center is lovely outside and in, which is meant to provide a place of gentle peace

for those under great duress.

In the baby clothes sorting room with full-time volunteer, Courtney, who is expecting twins!

The adult sorting room with director Barbara and her daughter, Liz, who works there part-time.  They came in to observe me organizing pamphlets and labeling containers.

I think this posting has been on the front of the church since we got here but we didn't notice it until after services Sunday.  These are beautiful people!

Another week complete

Another week has ended in Dothan and the work continues.  We had a lovely evening with the McFarland family last night and discussed how God moves Sowers around to benefit His people.  We wouldn't have come here had it not been for the opportunity to see our daughter and husband come through on their way to Florida.  So, we "picked" Dothan.  Two days after we got our request our kids decided that they were not going to be able to go to Florida.  When we got here we were able to see God's hand at work again as there was a list of odd jobs that needed to be completed before DCC could occupy the children's wing of the new addition.  We LOVE a variety of odd jobs.  Here are a couple more of them.

This door frame had to be repositioned, therefore the baseboard tile on either side of the door had to be removed.  Now someone had to put it back and regrout it.

The entry lock for the church was not working as they liked.  They needed someone to take it apart so that they could have it rekeyed.

What is the biggest problem with a public bathroom?  Everyone goes in, turns on the lights, then goes out leaving the lights to burn.  Solution!  Add a motion sensor.  You go in and the lights come on.  You go out and the motion sensor counts to 100 and turns out the lights.  Cool.  (Haven't quite finished this project yet.  We will need to add a neutral wire to the switchbox so the motion switch will have power to see you when you walk in).

A new week at DCC

We have started a new work week at DCC (Dothan Community Church) and the work schedule has had a bit of a shift.  We nearly completed the wiring jobs last week and now have started on a number of smaller job.  Those include installing a few sinks (the ones which we installed the shutoff valves last week), replacing some baseboard tile and installing the magnetic door stops on a couple of critical fire doors.

Here is one of the sinks that must be installed in the nursery bathroom.  There is also a very small potty in this bathroom which has to be hooked up and after looking the job over this afternoon, it may not be as easy as first thought as there isn't enough room between the flushing valve and the water line to add the required fittings.

After a few modifications with the piping and the flushing valve, it all came together.  But after the water pressure was turned back on the flushing valve was flushing all the time.  on further inspection, it was determined that the seat in the flushing valve has a hoogie (that's plumber talk for damage) on the seat and will have to be replaced.  Oh well, there is work for tomorrow.

Who put this post in the middle here anayway!  It would sure be easier to get in here and fasten these sinks to the cabinets if one could just get in the cabinet.

This is the final act of installing the magnets on the doors.  When these doors are put into service they will be held open magnetically and in the case of an emergency such as a fire alarm, the doors will automatically close.

Look who has found her element!  DCC has a great working relationship with the local Crisis Pregnacy Center.  Billie quickly found that there sin't anyone there who likes or wants to file.  When this work project is over they will all be singing her praise.

Back to work!

We have been back to work now for two days and have gotten a lot done.  The church is in Phase II of a four phase  construction project.  They are not going to have a debt when done as they are paying as they go.  Great idea, isn't it.

One of the first jobs we had to tackle was to put shut-off valves on all the new sinks.  The water lines we stubbed into the cabinets but had to have valves installed then set the sinks.

The new building had a very large distribution panel and had to have all new wiring from the transformer outside.  The wires were 0000 (that is 4 ought) and really difficult to bend and attach.  Pictured (other than my good side) is one of the local coordinators, Steve Loveland.

Just one more twist and a push and it will go into the lug!

After work today we made a trip out to the local mound just 60 paces from our motorhome.  See below what a blessing we are harvesting from this little mound.

OHH!  Ouch!

This is Billie's first experience picking blackberries.

Not bad for 20 minutes, eh!  Who is this nice looking fellow anyway?