A Great Week for Working and Adventure

Teams-1-Sid and Betty Anne Shearin, Littleton Baptist Church; 2-Elkin Valley Baptist Church, Elkin and Mt. Pleasant Baptist Church, State Road; 3-Theresa Baptist Church and Olive Branch Baptist Church, Roxboro; 4-Region 7 Feeding Team

The Theresa team went behind other organizations and cleaned up the homes after tear out had been done so the mold team could do their job.  They also painted two houses.  Something tells me Chris needs a little more work to do.

The Elkin/Mt. Pleasant team finished hanging sheet rock in two homes and started a third.  They also did the most important – they spent time with home owners ( and dog) and shared God’s love. Mary, the only woman on this team was our shower/laundry lady for the week.

The ladies on the feeding team had the kitchen covered so the two guys joined the Shearin work team after breakfast each day.  They moved furniture back into a completed home, pulled nails out of floors,  pulled out insulation plus reinstalled insulation on two homes.  Sid & Betty Anne did mostly mold treatment and assessments.  However they also moved furniture, painted and helped with sheet rock. Don (center) was our lone sheetrock finisher.  Billy was able to work on sheetrock some in between meeting with homeowners and talking on the phone.

Much work was accomplished this week.  It was great to have teams that were so flexible.  Their desire was to share God’s word along with doing what ever was needed.

On Saturday I went on a historical outing.  “A Weekend in Old Monmouth” is a yearly event and has forty-four stops.  Of course there is no way to visit all of them in one weekend.  First I visited MacKenzie House in Howell (top right). Then I went to Allaire Village (no pic) where they were having a craft show.  Then I traveled on t0 Wall to see (on the left) The Allgor/Barkalow Homestead and The Blansinburg Schoolhouse Museum-a one room school build in 1855.  The guide standing on the front porch actually attended the school as a child and was a delight to talk to. Then it was on to Ocean Grove, a camp meeting community founded by the Methodists in the post-Civil War religious revival.  They held their first prayer meeting here on July 31, 1869.  The Great Auditorium was built in 1894 and is the largest wood frame building in NJ. They also constructed a tent city for these meeting.  Families have been spending summers in these tiny tent city structures for over a century. The end of my tour was the Centennial Cottage (bottom left) and the Ocean Grove Historical Museum.

I have been doing a lot of walking this week.  The weather had been pretty nice and there have been volunteers here that like to walk. We have a state park almost across the street and since Sid used to be a park ranger he was interested in hiking some of the trails.  So Sid, Betty Ann, Doris, Ted and I headed out on Wednesday after dinner for a hike in the woods on a well marked trail.  Doris and I walked fast for exercise while the others must have been looking at the scenery.  Anyway we stayed way ahead of them.  The trail was a loop and Doris and I did not realize when we got back to the beginning. I was using the GPS on my phone but the battery was almost dead so I was trying to conserve it.  I checked to see how close we were to the end and realized that we had gone about a quarter mile too far and were looping around again.  We turned back and thought we were headed back to the parking lot but somehow had made too many turns.  Every time I checked the GPS it seemed we were getting further away instead of closer.  I was concerned that my battery was going to die and it was starting to get dark. Sid called and wanted to know where we were. I told him that I guess we were lost.  We finally got going in the right direction and found our way out before dark by the grace of God. It was a great adventure.

Ann