Have Lord - Will Travel: Fayette, MO

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.