Mill Creek, WV - August 2011

During the week between August 8 and 12, 2011, I led a mission team from my home church to Mill Creek, West Virginia.  This mission was a good example of serving the Lord through mission work in areas of God’s land outside the local community.  The mission supported a ministry called Tyrand Cooperative Ministries.  Its facility was located about a mile out of Mill Creek where lumber mills and coalmines are the primary source of employment.  Tyrand Ministries has been in operation for fifty years serving the needs of the elderly, handicapped, and other economically disadvantaged residents.  Mission teams come from several surrounding states, such as Ohio, North Carolina, and Florida.  The Tyrand staff was very excited to have a team from West Virginia.

I found Tyrand Ministries in what once was a farmhouse, barn, and an outbuilding or two.  The barn where mission teams once slept serves as a storage area for lumber and other building materials.  Today, a larger building provides sleeping areas for men and women, several bathrooms with showers, a large kitchen with eating area, and a large sitting area for daily devotions and relaxation.  The people of Mill Creek and their stories made this mission trip special.

The abundance of daily joys included sweet tidbits of food prepared by a couple of women on our team.  We began each morning with a devotional period.  Afterward, a volunteer project manager directed us to several homes within a short, and sometimes not so short, drive from Tyrand.  After the day’s work, we would settle down to a bodacious meal and evening devotions, which tended, more often than not, to expand into hours of good discussion.

The people of Mill Creek were as colorful as the landscape.  We had the pleasure of serving a decorated 89-year old veteran of World War II.  While we fixed a roof of one of his outbuildings, he delighted us with stories of battles (and his Purple Heart with three clusters) and of his high school sweetheart.  He spoke with joy in his heart of a young girl who went to college and became a teacher, writing letters during the years he served in the military, and waiting for his return to become his wife.  He told of his ten-day honeymoon driving to several sites in Virginia in his new 1931 Sportster.  Though she died in 1985, his wife came alive through his keen and charming memories.

We served another delightful, and rather amusing, man who suffered from diabetes.  This man knew he would soon lose both his feet; still he talked and joked about life as if nothing else mattered.  We worked on an enclosed porch where he wanted to install a wood stove before cold weather arrived, which would not be long in the mountains of West Virginia.  The man’s antics and humorous patter entertained us greatly.  After the seemingly short time we were there, the Tyrand volunteer offered a powerful prayer while kneeling before the man and placing hands on his legs.  Afterward the man shuffled into his trailer void of his usual exuberant humor.  We barely heard his final words to us as we departed, telling us to take care.  The appreciation from that man was beyond any words.  Similarly, our respect and admiration for his outlook on life, in spite of his condition, was admirable.

The next community project took us higher in the mountains, nearer to coalmines where large trucks bullied their way along narrow roads.  We served a woman who had recently lost her husband.  Still, her zest for life was remarkable.  She joyfully served us homemade bread and green beans to supplement our lunch.  Members of her family would stop by and talk.  Some of us found connections to her family, something that did not seem so unusual in the hills of West Virginia.

Overall, it was wonderful serving the Lord through our efforts in Mill Creek.  Our reward lay in the stories of the people we served and in the mountains of West Virginia.  On one evening we ventured to a small village tucked away high in those mountains.  I do not recall the name of the village but it was so quaint and picturesque.  I believe it was of Swiss origin.  I recall a few Swiss folk ventured from New York in search of a secluded area reminiscent of their homeland.  They founded a small village and went about establishing a good home in which to raise their families by retaining a bit of Swiss culture.  We tasted some of that culture by touring a local museum and enjoying a meal featuring foods made from recipes passed down through many years.

The Mill Creek area is a favorite of mine.  The beauty is evident in the hills and the people who live among them.  Like many of the nice places where the Lord has led me, I hope to return to Mill Creek.

Baldwin, LA - June 2011

After my third NOMADS project in Missouri, I decided to take the summer off, from NOMADS projects, that is.  My ‘second family’ in Ruston, LA, invited me to join them on a mission to Baldwin, Louisiana.  The mission was to help at the Sager Brown disaster relief facility.  The facility is the Methodist Church’s central distribution point for disaster relief supplies and is under the auspices of the United Methodist Committee on Relief, or UMCOR.

I had just acquired a newer trailer and was anxious to try it out.  So, on June 18, 2001, I was again on my way south to the coast of Louisiana – Cajun country.

I very much enjoyed seeing the folks from the Antioch United Methodist Church.  They were familiar faces.  I was looking for a great week with them.  Their decision to include me in their mission meant a lot to me.  I appreciated this opportunity.  At least one couple in the group had been coming to Sager Brown for the past fifteen years.  That was great encouragement for me in pursuing my passion of serving the Lord by helping others.

In late spring, the middle section of our country experienced temperatures much higher than usual and much earlier in the year.  Southern Louisiana was no exception.  I worked in a warehouse during the week.  As most warehouses, it was not air-conditioned.  Fans moved the hot air around.  Cold drinks were plentiful and appreciated.  My task was to pack health kits for shipment.  Methodist churches across the country contribute contents of health kits, including such items as toothbrushes, toothpaste, nail clippers, small towels, washcloths, and similar personal things.  The kits end up at the Sager Brown facility where volunteers unpack them, screen for any in appropriate items (such as cash), and repack the kit.  My job was to collect the finished kits from other volunteers and pack 24 kits to a box.  The boxes were sealed and stacked on a pallet.  Later in the week, I heard someone estimate that we packed well over 3000 kits.

UMCOR distributes the kits within the United States and to areas throughout the world.  I recall during a recent mission trip to Haiti seeing boxes from UMCOR.  It was nice to see more of the process of helping others.  I was packing health kits that would end up with a child, a mother, or father somewhere in a remote area of the world.  Cool.

The UMCOR staff was very nice.  They were a mix of paid staff and long-term volunteers.  I liked the idea of working at the disaster relief facility and asked how to become a long-term volunteer.  I need to take a course offered through the United Methodist Church but after checking the dates and places, I was already committed to NOMADS projects.  Perhaps another time, I told myself.

The 1-week mission trip was much shorter than the 3-week NOMADS projects and it went by quickly.  Aside from the work and meals I shared with my friends from Ruston, I enjoyed a wonderful tour of the bayou by boat.  One of the guys from Ruston brought his boat and offered a ride with others along the waters in the area surrounding Sager Brown.  I saw miles of river lined with fine homes and some not so fine.  One particular sight was what looked like a drilling barge on its side in the middle of the river.  Our pilot said his depth finder read the depth at 40 feet.  The barge towered at least another 40 feet in the air.  It apparently turned over during one of the recent hurricanes and was now a gigantic monument of rusting metal.

Another highlight was two occasions where our group enjoyed dinner at a local casino.  I am not one to play the machines but the food was great.  I felt right at home with my wonderful friends from Antioch United Methodist Church.  We laughed and talked as if I had known them my entire life.

I look forward to finding a reason to venture back to Louisiana.  I found great friends and fine food in that area of our world.  I pray the Lord will lead me back down that way soon.

Entrance to UMCOR's Sager Brown facility

One of the buildings on the small campus

Pathway leading from the main campus to the warehouse

View of the campus along the bayou

UMCOR's disaster relief distribution center

Packaging operation and storage area

Boxes of health kits ready for shipment

Volunteers assembling health kits

Packing table

Fayette, MO - April 2011

My third NOMADS project was cancelled due to having no team leader.  This, however, did not stop me and one other couple from heading to Central Methodist University in Fayette, Missouri.  The NOMADS organization called us ‘drop-ins’.

I had left my trailer at my brother’s place in Oklahoma after heading north from Louisiana and taking another three-week, self-imposed break in West Virginia.  Yeah, that sounds like a lot of traveling but that is what I love to do.  As I said before, I am learning how to best schedule these trips so that I do not have to travel across country or stay idle at some intermediary stop.

This is my first time in northern Missouri so I saw this trip yet as another adventure.  Following directions to Fayette, I soon learned that this was not a large city.  Fayette is a small country town with a nice but small university.

I pulled into the town and followed the back streets to a small parking lot at the rear of the university grounds.  My trailer fit nicely beside my partners’ trailer enabling us to share the single water source.  I had a separate electrical hook-up.  Since there was no sewer available, all of us used the facilities in the sports building.  The hook-ups were not ideal but certainly adequate.  Sitting in the parking lot was a bit unnerving because my trailer was next to the entrance to the sports building and folks that used the facility would park very near to my trailer.  There were no mishaps, thankfully.

Joining the team of three, I was open to whatever the Lord would have me do at this project.  My first project was in an urban area performing outreach to local residents in need.  My second project involved maintenance at a farm that served a children’s home.  I now found myself at a university.  I soon learned that the few of us would help ready the university for its upcoming graduation ceremony.

The husband of the couple had extensive experience in building maintenance.  He went off with other maintenance guys.  The maintenance director assigned the wife of my partners and me to the Housekeeping department.  Our first job was to help ready the gymnasium for the graduation ceremony.  The work was simple cleaning but I soon discovered that she and I received the tasks that the paid staff did not want to do.  That was all right at first, for who was I to question what the Lord brought me there to do.  I guess I could call it a lesson in humility.

After a week of cleaning bleachers and floors by hand, we were done with the gymnasium.  A more enjoyable task was spreading mulch around trees throughout the complex.  That did not take long and we were soon out of obvious work.  The other couple decided at that point to leave earlier than the three-week schedule.  Since we were considered ‘drop-ins’, I resolved that we were not obligated to stay the entire period.  So, not wanting to be there alone and impose on the maintenance staff to find meaningful work, I headed out too.

On one sunny afternoon while I was spreading mulch, the president of the university walked out to thank me for my volunteer work.  I appreciate her effort and expression of gratitude.  However, now that I have ‘been there, done that’, I do not think I would volunteer to return unless the Lord compels me to do so.

Beautiful campus

Stately buildings with a lot of history

Tree-lined walkways

Camping area out back

Gymnasium ready for graduation ceremony

Ruston, LA - March 2011

Our world is full of need and wonderful places.  I have learned that by finding my niche in life, that is helping others, was not something that came on me all of a sudden.  Back in 1992, I learned that a young pastor that served a small church in rural Virginia was putting together a mission team for a trip to Mexico.  The invitation was open to anyone.  I knew little to nothing about mission work but a trip to Mexico sounded adventurous and exciting.  I recall that first mission trip with fond memories, though at the time it was replete with what I thought were hardships only later to discover they were simple opportunities of humility.  I returned to Mexico several times since that first experience.  I find the Hispanic culture and country to be colorful and interesting, and the people very faithful.  Over the years, I ventured out on other mission trips to Belize, Nicaragua, Haiti, and a few areas of the United States, including Louisiana, South Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia, Florida, and Missouri.

You might think a language barrier might be problematic while doing mission work in various, often remote, areas of the world.  Not necessarily so.  I could say that I speak a little of most languages, except Greek.  Even when visiting Mexico, Nicaragua, South Carolina, and Louisiana, I found the language difference bearable.  Now, if someone were to ask me if I speak Spanish, Cajun, Creole, or any of those languages that may sound weird or are otherwise unfamiliar, I know they are all Greek to me.  (OK, if you are perhaps a little slow, there is a joke in there somewhere.)  I should also say that I have a hearing problem.  Both ears, too.  Often times I will not hear folks or, more often, simply not understand what they say.  I have found a universal response that seems to work wherever I happen to be.  Simply respond with, “Huh?”

I cannot say I have any particular favorite place in this world, culture, or people.  I say that because I believe the Lord has yet to show me all the wonderful places, cultures, and peoples of our world.  Of course, when I think back over the years, my first mission stands out with certain significance.  It was by far the most challenging in terms of putting me out of my comfort zone.  It was not my first time out of the United States, but it was my first mission experience.  Another trip is significant for other reasons.  Haiti.  That country experienced a bad earthquake eleven months before my visit and much of the devastation had not been disturbed or cleared.  Still, seeing the hoards of people trying to live a normal life amidst the destruction hit me hard.  I found the country as beautiful as the inhabitants.

I can say, without a bit of hesitation, there is one place where I have found the people to be most friendly, welcoming, hospitable, and genuine.  That place would be in the countryside near Ruston, Louisiana.  In particular, I would say the folks who attend Antioch United Methodist Church, Ruston, LA.

The Lord led me to a small remote area in northern Louisiana for my second NOMADS project.  I enjoyed the relatively new feeling of trust that He would guide and equip me for whatever lay ahead.  I headed toward Ruston, just off I-20, and soon found the Outdoor Wilderness Learning Center, located on 800 acres of picturesque farmland.  The OWL Center is associated with the Louisiana United Methodist Children and Family Services organization.  It consists of bunkhouse and cabins, wooden maze, Challenge (ropes) Course, and other outdoor facilities designed as a therapeutic and recreational facility that supports team building, self-esteem skills, and family strength.  It was paradise to me.

Though I enjoyed my first NOMADS adventure in St. Petersburg, FL, I felt more at home at the OWL Center.  It was a farm, complete with horses, barns, pastures, ponds, and a wide blue sky overhead.  It reminded me of when I was a kid growing up in Texas and Oklahoma.  The staff that ran the Center was mostly young women.  One guy who was in charge of maintenance was our primary contact.  He reminded me so much of my grandfather.  Though he and I were close in age, I felt like I was back on my grandfather’s farm.  Yep, it was paradise.  The guy was so friendly and accommodating.  He had a wonderful sense of humor and was very easy to work with.

The weather was cool but spring was on the way.  Our first assignment was to build arbors over two small docks on a pond below one of the main buildings.  We built them out of cedar logs collected from the woods around the farm.  We had no specific design so I contributed ideas on construction.  This place was very different from my first project because I could use and bring my own tools.  All the team members were friendly, participative, and helpful.  Again, I was finding new friends.

During a weekend I wanted to attend a local church.  The maintenance guy told me about a small church nearby.  On Saturday, I ventured out in search of the church so I would know where it was on Sunday.  I drove a few miles and found what looked like an abandoned church building.  There was no sign indicating times of Sunday services.  It certainly looked closed for good.

The next morning I planned to check out the church around 9:30, which was a time I heard other local churches held their services.  I pulled into the parking lot of the Antioch United Methodist Church just as another car pulled in ahead of me.  The couple invited me in and explained that Sunday School was at 10:00 followed by church service.  I reckon the church was not closed after all.

Some people may think that things just happen, perhaps by coincidence or happenstance.  There are things in my life that I believe God orchestrates.  The couple that pulled in ahead of me at the church, for example, is one of those things that God orchestrated.  The couple turned out to be among the nicest people in the world.  They had been married for many years and it appeared to me that they were completely in tune with one another.  At it turns out, he is a master musician having studied classical music, taught music, and built several musical instruments like pianos and violins.  She had been a school teacher.  I found both of them very interesting in their own way.  I cannot say enough about how wonderful they are, how friendly they were, how they made me part of their ‘family’ within minutes of meeting me.  That acceptance was not limited to that couple either.  Several members of their extended family, related or not, were as accepting and friendly as they were.

The worship service was simple, interesting, educational, and entertaining.  Music included a piano, acoustic guitar, bass guitar, and fiddle (or violin).  I had never heard a fiddle played during church service and it added a nice sound to the music.

I attended two Sunday services during my stay as well as two Bible Study meetings on Wednesday evenings.  Nice dinners supplemented the intimate sessions of study, sharing, and worship.  Well into the tradition of Methodist churches, the food was absolutely wonderful.  I was never one for eating squash.  One of the friendliest women prepared a bodacious meal that included a squash dish.  I did not know what it was but it looked good.  It was a casserole that I thought included mashed potatoes but tasted a bit different.  It was SO good!  I could have eaten more than I did but my stomach could hold only so much.  Even the realization of knowing it was squash, something I would have otherwise turned from, did not stop me.  I loved it.  Our hostess was so gracious when she prepared me a take-home plate.  Wow, that was great!

Back at the farm, I continued to enjoy new friendships.  One particular couple was very helpful in advising me about other NOMADS projects that I might like.  Another couple invited me to their home in New England area.  I had never been exposed to such openness, friendliness, and acceptance before.

The OWL Center is certainly one place where I will return for a couple of reasons.  The main reason is the fine people in the area, including the young women that run the facility, the great guy who does the maintenance, and the wonderful people in the area.  Part of my heart stays with the Antioch United Methodist Church and I will certainly return when the Lord leads me in that direction.

Campsite at the OWL Center

View of the farm

Another view of the farm

A few of the many horses for therapeutic riding

Farm buildings

Small docks before the arbors

Building arbors out of cedar poles

Finished product - ready for a wedding in June

Getting ready to build a shelter over bleachers

Repaired a gate - shelter in background

Great down-home music!

St. Petersburg, FL - February 2011

It is a wonderful thing to realize that the Lord has a plan for your life.  There are times when the Lord leads you into a seemingly innocuous activity for learning.  My first NOMADS project was in St. Petersburg, FL.  Looking back at it, that project was chocked full of learning opportunities.  I can only hope that the learning stuck.

On the Tuesday before I was scheduled to head south for St. Petersburg the area around my cabin outside Hedgesville, West Virginia, got about ten inches of snow.  I love snow.  It is beautiful.  My cabin in nestled in amongst the woods.  I have no grass to mow and unless I have a hankering, I need to shovel no snow.  The wildlife, aside from my self-indulged rare instances of partying, is abundant.  Wild deer and turkey routinely visit me, ranging from fawns and chicks to noble bucks and strutting roosters.  The ubiquitous squirrels are tolerated as a means of enjoyment.  They try devious means to unload my bird feeders.  I retaliate by stringing trout line between trees and hoisting the feeder just inches beyond the range of the squirrel’s leap.  I watch from my back window as the squirrels glare at me from the safe distance of a large oak, and I at them with thoughts of raising a 12-guage shotgun and obliterating half the bark on that tree.  I swear the squirrels are winning.  They have apparently come conspiring with the raccoons that are better adept at unhooking lofty feeders and scattering birdseed for every sort of critter.  I know the Lord made man higher on the food chain from squirrels but I do not recall seeing any reference in the Bible where I have to feed them.

I cleared the snow away from my trailer and packed for my first adventure.  I was ready to hit the road by Thursday evening.  The weather forecast for Friday, January 25, 2011, called for snow flurries.  I woke that morning in anticipation of a leisurely drive down clean, albeit cold, roads and highways.  Well, the snow flurries were a bit heavy.  By early morning, the flurries had covered the roads and shown no intent of slacking up.  It was a beautiful snowfall but I needed to drive.  Further, I needed to pull my trailer for the first time in snow.  Beyond all that, the road out of my place was a downhill slope with a T intersection at the bottom of it.

Not to be daunted by such trivial matters, I locked my cabin door, mounted my trusty truck, and slammed her into 4-wheel drive.  She groaned under the strain, diesel engine roaring loudly, and slowly pulled herself and the trailer onto snow-covered pavement from the muddy parking spot beside my house.  Happy to be doing what she was made to do, she pulled the trailer with a steady grip on the cold and wet pavement.  With great pride, she rambled vociferously with enthusiasm and determination down the sloping pavement.  Her brakes, though unaccustomed to such an overwhelming load, guided the massive bulk down the hill and through the turns as she gleefully navigated the curvy road and on toward the highway.  Never has there been such a prouder moment in the life of a Dodge truck.

Perhaps not as confident as my trusty truck, I wiped the sweat from my brow, took a deep breath, maybe two, threw my gloves aside to rub my sweaty hands on my pants leg, and embarked on my first NOMADS adventure.

As I turned onto the Interstate, I left the falling snow behind.  The farther south I traveled, I saw less and less snow on the ground.  By the time I crossed the North Carolina border, I knew I was headed to warmer weather.  This is not to say that I dislike winter.  In fact, I love winter.  I love the snow, skiing, watching the fire in my woodstove as it warms my cabin, and venturing out as I desire into the snow-covered landscape.  During the summer I tend to stay indoors enjoying conditioned air and less humidity.  I would rather avoid the heat of summer.  So, why am I heading south during the winter?  Well, the NOMADS projects are in the south during winter, confirming one of the many interpretations of the NOMADS acronym: Northern Old Methodists Avoiding Deep Snow.

I arrived at the St. Luke’s United Methodist Church, St. Petersburg, Florida, on the afternoon of Saturday, January 26.  Not knowing what I was to face in Florida, I used my dependable navigator to guide me to the project site.  Sure enough, I found the church where I was assigned.  OK, around back, the directions read.  This was a new one on me – I drove around the back of the church to see five trailers/RVs parked in the middle of the church parking lot.  As I maneuvered into my space, I realized that all six trailers, including mine, received water from one ½-inch hose.  Each of us had electrical hook-up but that was it.  I later learned that on every Friday morning all of us would use a small macerator hooked to the trailer’s sewer outlet.  All of this was enlightening.  I knew I could survive.

Our team numbered eleven in all.  I was the only single member and the youngest.  I did not know what lay ahead of me and at this point in my walk-of-faith; I was not sure how much my faith would play a role in leading me through this project.  The team leader met me as I pulled into the parking lot and directed me where to park.  As I set up my trailer, having learned more than a few things in Marion, NC, during my first outing, other members of our team soon joined me.  I found them very kind and friendly.  Good deal!

 The NOMADS project for the next three weeks included home repairs in the local community, arranged through the church.  Presumably, because I had no specific skills in construction or the building trade, my team leader assigned me to unskilled labor.  This was not all bad because I reminded myself that I was there to serve the Lord and would do whatever was asked of me.  My expectations, however, plagued me with disappointment.  I had emptied out my shed back home and looked forward to using the tools I brought.  I hoped to either use them or at least learn how to use them.  Another glitch for me was the team leader wanted to drive his vehicle to each project.  Being my first project, I went along and did not insist on driving my own truck.

One of the other guys recognized my plight and invited me to join him on some home repairs.  Unfortunate for me, the team leader had his own way of assigning work.  As the third week of our project flew by, we completed our team evaluations and wrapped up our work assignments.   My friend was given a small project of fixing a ceiling fan in a woman’s home.  He told the team leader, almost in passing, that I would help him.  Inside, I was elated, but kept it to myself.  He and I drove to the home and found the broken fan.  He quickly disassembled the fan.  With surgical precision, he immediately identified the errant mechanism, and removed it with ease.  Turning to his novice helper, who had learned about the inner workings of a fan by occasionally viewing the turning blades while lying in bed on a hot, sleepless night, he said simply, “It’s all yours.”

‘Huh?’  My desire to learn about the tools in my truck was far from my mind.  My desire to be one of ‘them’ who understood all about things like electric, plumbing, tile, framing, and roofs, wore blue jeans with a heavy leather belt burdened with pouches of all kinds of neat tools of which I knew absolutely nothing about, and walked with an air of confidence that would overcome any construction project from building the Eiffel Tower to fixing a ceiling fan, brought beads of sweat to my brow.  My mind went numb immediately, scrambled by imaginations of how was I to reassemble the multitude of small shiny pieces of STUFF back into the resemblance of a workable ceiling fan.  To make matters worse, here was this small elderly woman watching through gold-trimmed spectacles from the doorway of her small bedroom with a look of admiration and trust at these two great repairers of ceiling fans towering over her, dissecting her beautiful fan into a million small pieces of shiny metal, plastic, titanium, or whatever they were made of, as if they were sent directly from God into her midst to perform one of His many miracles in her small world of living out each day of her life with the peaceful breeze filtering down on her as she slept cozily beneath the lovely bedspread that was now covered with the guts of her beloved ceiling fan.  My hope was that she did not focus too intently on the sweat of my brow, the wringing of my hands as they trembled with fear of the moment, my stammering speech if only I could voice a small peep of response to my friend’s remark.

The Lord is present in this world of ours, no doubt.  Further, a fellow NOMAD, well, this one, of course, would not leave his partner hanging.  Perhaps sensing my sudden plight, waiting for the tsunami of my blood pressure to subside following the great quake to my nervous system, he stood by waiting patiently and understandingly as I fumbled with pliers and a screwdriver waiting for divine guidance to guide my hands.  The Lord blessed me with recollections from childhood at my moment of certain death by nervousness overload.  I remembered the scattered pieces of cardboard that once assembled correctly would make themselves into a small, simple puzzle depicting a clown and balloons.  Leave it to the Lord to simplify things that are certainly otherwise massive, complex undertakings.  I saw before me a simple puzzle that, once reassembled correctly, would make an operational ceiling fan.

Blinking away the flood of sweat, tears of self-imposed frustration, or more likely my attempt to clear my vision enough to see the many small shiny metal pieces without my reading glasses, I set myself to reassemble the fan.  Again, the Lord blessed me with sufficient recall of my friend’s disassembly as to put the thing back together with only a couple minor delays in reassembly while mentally cursing the engineer who designed such a mass, or mess, of complex machinery in the first place.

The smile on the lovely face of the elderly woman as she watched the blades once again circle around and push air down upon her as it rotated silently in the small bedroom was more gratifying than any words of thanks she could offer.  Her gratitude was apparent but it fell secondary to my satisfaction of accomplishment in overcoming this previous seemingly insurmountable task and doing something that I had dreamed of doing before joining this project.

My first NOMADS project was good, productive, satisfying, and enlightening.  I learned that NOMADS serve the Lord by helping others.  I learned the truth of what I heard from one NOMAD that when you come into a NOMADS camp, you have found immediate friends.

When I scheduled my NOMADS projects for the first few months of 2011, I planned to serve three projects, each with a three-week break between them.  This, I learned quickly, was not smart for it caused me to drag my trailer back to West Virginia before heading to my next project.  I was not organized enough at that time to store my trailer in the south during the cold months or work back-to-back projects with minimal travel between them.  So, I headed home for a three-week break.

St. Petersburg, FL - nice place to spend winter

Host of my first NOMADS project

I never imagined 'camping' in a church parking lot

Make do with what you got

Working on a kitchen remodeling project

Building a ramp

The 'Ramp'

I did a lot of painting in FL

My first NOMADS team - good folks!

Sunset over the Gulf of Mexico