Our 2015 Sojourning Schedule is SET

Friday morning at 7:30, Irene and I lined up for "the free-for-all."  This is the morning when the doors to the Camp Bee Lodge are thrown open at 9:00 AM and its a mad rush by all of us sojourners to sign up for the sojourns to be held in the coming year.  

The boards with the descriptions of the location, type of work and dates of all of the sojourns have been available to look at since the workshop began last Monday.  We've all had time to drool over which one's we would want to be part of.  

If you are qualified (Irene and I are) you can sign up to be the "Team Leader" of the sojourn.  That means YOU are the one that gets to call the contact requesting the sojourn and confirm the DATE and the LENGTH OF TIME and the TYPE OF WORK to be done at the sojourn.  PLUS, you automatically are part of the sojourn team.  Until a sojourn has a Team Leader and the Dates are confirmed N-O   O-N-E else can sign up for a requested sojourn.  

For the greater part of our sojourns, we didn't need to worry - we had signed up as the team leaders.  But for 3 of the ones we wanted, we had to brave the "free-for-all" to get signed up for them.  Two of those are in January close to our new home in Mission, TX.  The 3rd was in April in Prescott Arizona.

Our schedule for 2015 opens with a Southwest leg - 3 in Texas followed by the one in Prescott Arizona and another in Kayenta, AZ.  Then we had to Ohio for 2 sojourns and then farther east with one in New York then on to Saguenay Quebec once again.  We end our Northeastern swing with our Shults-Lewis Sojourn before coming back to Camp Bee for next year's workshop in 2015.  After the workshop we have one more sojourn - this one in Socorro, NM.

To see a complete listing of our 2015 sojourn schedule click on the following link:

Jim and Irene's 2015 Sojourning Schedule

"in a moment; in the twinkling of an eye" OR Already?

Irene and I left Shults-Lewis on Wednesday afternoon.  after teaching a class on "Providence and the Holy Spirit" at the Lebanon, Indiana church of Christ that evening, we hit the road immediately and stayed the night in the Walmart parking lot in Effingham, IL.  We hit the road the next morning early (6:30 AM) and got all the way to Benton, Arkansas (just west of Little Rock) about 3 PM where we stopped in another Walmart Parking lot for the evening.  

This morning we were on the road by 8 AM and made it to Camp Bee (Sojourner headquarters) right at noon.  We got all set up since we are going to be here until the 23rd of October.

Having said that, we will leave tomorrow morning.  We will leave the Trekker here and drive the Flex to Mission, TX to close on the house at Bentsen Palms.  3707 Hummingbird Lane will be our new residence Monday afternoon.

I've got to call Monday for our UPack to be delivered and already have an appointment for the DirecTV installation set up for Wednesday morning.  That means we will have to get a big screen television for our living room on Monday afternoon or Tuesday.

Most of the u-pack truck we will be able to be unload ourselves, however the big pieces some of the landscape guys will help us get out of the truck on Tuesday or Wednesday.  We will then spend Wednesday and Thursday trying to get things in the right room.  

On Friday we are flying to Tucson, Arizona to see our newest grandbaby Izabela Rain Gordon and we are looking forward to that.  We will fly back from Tucson on Monday and continue to unpack the boxes.

Then on Friday, October 3rd, we will drive back to Marshall, Texas to be here to attend the listening lab that starts on Monday the October 6th.  The listening lab runs until the 8th of October; then on October 13th, Monday, the workshop begins when we pick our sojourns for next year.

another One Bites the Dust

For the last 2 1/2 weeks we've been @ Shults-Lewis Child and Family Services just South of Valparaiso, Indiana.  It's affiliated with the church of Christ and is a residence home off troubled teens.  We have gone there for the last 4 years.

The greatest part of it is getting to know and make a difference in the lives of the kids.  For some this is their last hope before they would end up in Juvenile  Hall.  Virtually all of them have issues with authority --- of any ilk.  Many are the product of SEVERELY dysfunctional homes.  One girls mom taught her to steal to get her mom drug money and her brother is the one that was giving the girl cocaine and LSD.  Others have been physically and/or sexually abused.

Within two weeks they think of us as the grandparents they WISH they had.  It's a joy to see the transformation in there attitudes.

For the most part Irene and the other ladies got a MONSTER rummage sale ready.  We got there the 1st of September and the Children's homes big yearly fund raising day "annual day" as they call it was the 13th.  The rummage sale items took up a whole gymnasium.  New and used items of every kind have to be sorted by size or type.  Then they have to be stacked and priced.  It took 6 ladies 9 days 7 hours per day to get it ready.

I painted the office of one of the counselors Robin Egg Blue (3 walls) and purple.  quick, guess: Is the counselor male or female?
The day before annual day all the men set up the 500 chairs and 100 tables for the vendor booths and auction area.  It's a nightmare!

The rest of the 2nd week and Monday & Tuesday of this week 5 of us men spent our time putting together a large utility shed at resident home #5.

We got stuck leaving.  it rained 8 inches in the 3 days before we arrived.  It made it difficult to level our rig: the blocks we use under our jacks just kept pushing into the soft ground.  Then, while we were the it must have rained another 10".  It was a quagmire.  It took us 4 hours to get out of the much.

As I write this we are in the parking lot of the Walmart in Effingham, IL.  We have to be in Mission Texas on Monday to close on our brand new home.

Cue John, Paul, George and Ringo OR "o/` o/` Back in the US, Back in the US, Back in the USSA o/` o/`"

We are spending the night in the Walmart Parking Lot in Burton, Michigan about 6 miles east of Flint.  We left Toronto this morning at about 10 AM and it took 2:45 PM and that includes going through the border at Sarnia, ON/Port Huron, MI.  It went pretty quickly.  He didn't have us prove we didn't have any guns like the Canadian Border Guard did going into Canada.  Tomorrow we will arrive at Shults-Lewis and set up for the Sojourn that we start there on Tuesday, September 2nd.

I thought I'd share with you my thoughts on the PaleoCyber era we just spent in Canada.  We've been to many RV parks in America over the last 6 years of RVing.  When we first started it was pretty rare to find a park that had WiFi.  Today, it's commonplace.  In fact, we haven't stayed at a park in the US in the last 3 years that did NOT have WiFi.  I must conclude then that Canadian RV parks are 3-5 years behind the curve in their WiFi offering.  We stayed in 6 RV parks in Ontario and Quebec provinces.  Except for 1 park in Kingston, ON, they were all in or near  VERY large cities - Toronto, Montreal and Quebec City.  There were only 2 parks that had complimentary WiFi.  Another park you had to pay $4 for a WiFi connection that (I swear) must have been over a 300 baud modem.  Given what is available in Canada for IN-HOME use (as good as anything in the US), it's hard to accept the absolutely abysmal quality and/or total lack of WiFi in Canadian RV parks.  Which probably is based upon my next point.

Canadians are CRAZY about camping - Class A, Class C, Pop-up Trailers, Towables (we didn't see many 5th wheels) and just staying in tents.  All of the RV parks were extremely full of all of the above modes of "Camping."  Because of this high occupancy rate, I think that RV parks know they can skimp on offering services like WiFi to try to boost their "client pool."  WiFi or no WiFi, they are going to be virtually full every night. So, why spend the extra money for something (WiFi) that can't increase your bottom line since you are virtually full WITHOUT having to offer it.

Even Saint Ambroise which isn't a very large city had a VERY large RV park and a large RV dealership in town.  We saw more RV dealers in Canada than you can shake a stick at.

I thought I'd share some more pictures with you that Irene and I took on our Sojourn to Saint Ambroise, Saguenay, Quebec Province.  The first group here shows the old steel roofing after the ladies painted it to look "rustic"

Below are some pictures of the work we got done on the sojourn (besides the painting the 3 ladies did).

The red steel siding on the front of the building now is the old roof that was taken off of the area where the new steel roof is now installed.  The two pictures at the bottom of the 5 above pics show the "verge rafters" that we built.  You can also see the TyVek weather seal.  That is where the white roofing the ladies painted will be installed.  It's white because white reflects light which will help melt the snow and keep it from building up on the roof.  If you look at the main part of the building near the top of the 2nd and 3rd pictures, you can see some of the old roofing that is yet to be removed.

Below are some pictures of the scenery in Saguenay.  It is very beautiful country.  This is one of the greatest benefits of Sojourning and RVing.  We get to go places and see what God has put THERE and no where else in the whole world.

Finally, no matter how much we always enjoy traveling to South Africa, Namibia, Mexico, Romania, Malta, Albania and Canada - it's always wonderful to walk up to that US Customs and Immigration Service person and now that in just a couple of minutes you will be back in the USA .... and we are!

Frenchies in Our Rear View Mirror

We left Saguenay yesterday morning in caravan with Bob and Sue Hughes and Ron and Lineta Grimes about 11:30.  The Hughes and us both came down to Quebec City and stayed at the KOA there.  It was a pretty nice campground.  We played Euchre last night.  The guys won 2 out of 3.  I'm not much on card games - well any kind of game really - except Scrabble.  The kinds of games I like are played outside or in gymnasiums.  But the fellowship around them is great so that's why I play.

Today we are on to Montreal (The Royal Mountain).  It's only about 2 1/2 hours away we will stay there for the night at the Montreal Alloutte KOA.  Tomorrow night we will be in Kingston, Ontario back in the English speaking section of Canada.

Our trip to Saguenay and the work there went fantastically well.  We had a hard working team and accomplished a great deal.  We moved the project down the road quite a bit.

I'll get pictures in our next post which I'll write from Montreal this evening.

And the Beat Goes On

The work continues here in Sainte Ambroise, Saguenay, Quebec.  We continue to make some process in the work.  This past Thursday it rained so we switched our work day to Friday and took Thursday as our day off.  Friday we got a LOT done.  We got black felt paper put down on the long "shed roof" on one side of the building and the steeper of the two sections of the gambrel roof on that same side.  Then we also got the final metal roof on the shed section of that side of the building.  Here's a video that shows.

Today Bob and Sue Hughes (two of the other Sojourners here) took us out to lunch.  We went to "Mike's" which is a Pizza & Chicken restaurant here.  Chicken is HUGE in Quebec Province - both in popularity and in actual size.  You go to Mike's or Scores or even Costco and the chickens here are just plain big!  After that we had to do some shopping.  I had to get a new toner cartridge for our laser jet printer so I looked for an office supply store: Staples came up as being in town.  COOL.  So we drove to where it is. NO STAPLES.  There was however a "Bureau en Gros."  It was Red and White on the outside just like "Staples."  So we took a chance and stopped there.  Sure enough "Staples" in Quebec is called "Bureau en Gros."   It's just like the KFC here being called PFK - "Poulet Frit Kentucky."  Apparently, the law in Quebec is that all business signs MUST be in French.  Not even Trademark signs are exempt.  How positively Elitist - or to use a fine French word - Gauche!

We also had to find some leather work gloves.  I went to 2 places - A Hardware Store in St. Ambroise and a store that is the Quebec equivalent of Home Depot - NO (Zero, Nada, Zilch, Negative Bupkiss) leather gloves.  We were told by a store clerk to check at "Canadian Tire."  It ends up being much more than just a Tire Store.  It is Canada's largest Auto Parts store but even more than that.  The one we went to had a Garden Supply store and a housewares area also.  It is truly a bizarre retail amalgamation.  But I guess it works here.  Oh, they DO sell tires too ...... I guess (though I never saw them).

Coming back to the rig from shopping today we stopped and got some pictures of the beautiful Saguenay River in the downtown area.  Here's a pic and a short video.

We have 2 more work days here.  We will leave Wednesday on our way back to Indiana.  We are taking our time: Quebec City KOA night 1; Montreal KOA - night 2; Kingston - night 3.  Then we are visiting Mary, Brad and Amelie for 3 days before we arrive at Shults-Lewis for our next Sojourn.

All six of us sojourners are playing Yahtzee right now.  WAY, too little intellect and WAY too much luck to be a game I really like, so this is all about fellowship.  Till Later!

A Veritable Potpourri (That's French Lingo for a whole lotta different stuff at the same time)

We are still in Saguenay and will be until the 20th of August.  We are working on l'Eglise du Christ au Saguenay, Québec Province in Canada.  The building has been a real "work in progress."  They are converting an old barn that was then a truck repair shop (complete with an pit to work under the truck engines) into a church building. Part of what we have worked on is repainting the OLD metal siding to be reused on the exterior.  Then we have also been working on a facade that they are installing on the front of the building.

Here's a couple of videos of the painting that the 3 sojourner ladies did at the first part of last week.

The Red Metal Sheets will be on the Front of the Building.

The Gray Metal Sheets have to be painted still (this week's work)

The Brown painted Sheets are for the sides of the building.

We've also worked on the fascias of the building.  Here's a video showing that:

On the Facade we have been building a "Verge Rafter" for the back side of the facade and getting roofing felt on the roof of the facade. We got 1/2 of it installed on Thursday.  We will install the rest in the morning Lord willing.  Here's a picture of the facade with the scaffolding installed so we can work on it.  That's me at the top.  I've always been a monkey when it comes to climbing.  Now, I'm a geriatric monkey!  But I felt so young scaling the upward heights.  Unfortunately, the next day all my joints were telling me "Don't write a check your body can't cash!"  But I got back up there.  As those that have been following this blog forever know, we had to replace the roof on the house we just sold about 16 months months ago - I was on that roofing project too.  Plus, I've replaced numerous other shed roofs and installed 2 other house roofs also.  Still on the roof of the facade is a 12/12 pitch (45º angle) so we were safety harnesses when working on it.

I also wanted to take the opportunity to update you on the house we are having built for us in Retama Village in Mission, Texas.  We hope to close on it the 22nd of September.  We got some updated pictures from Carol Kerr on Friday so I thought I'd include them on this post also.

This is a picture of the guest bathroom with the tub (covered so it isn't dinged up during construction) and the Sink base (on the left) and an overhead cabinet .

This is a picture of the Laundry Room showing the 

cabinet above the dryer.

This is the sink cabinet in the Master Bathroom.  It's only 1/2 of it.  There are 2 sinks and a 2nd Medicine Cabinet on the left that aren't in the picture.

This the the master bathroom tiled shower.  You can see the smallest portion of the seat near the right edge about 1/3 up the picture.  The light on the rear wall is from those glass blocks in the exterior wall on the right.

The picture above is the future home of the master bathroom toilet.  That is a linen closet on the left of it and an overhead cabinet above where it will be (hence OVERhead!)

The picture above shows the breakfast bar counter.  Also the lower counter is over the dishwasher and the kitchen sink will be dropped into it also (the holes for all the sinks haven't been cut out yet - The stone is MUCH less likely to break if they aren't)

The picture above is the cabinetry surrounding the ovens - the space below is for the regular electric oven and the one above is for the Microwave oven.

So, that's it.  We had Friday off and Ron and Lineta Grimes from Graysville, TN who are on the sojourn also and Irene and I drove out to Tadoussac and had lunch and then drove back and went to the Walmart in Saguenay.

Yesterday the Ladies - Sue Hughes, Lineta, Irene and Jean Grenier's  (the local preacher) wife, Anna - all had a beading party so Irene could get some bracelets made for sale at the Annual Day at Shults-Lewis in September.  We guys took a drive around "the lake" that isn't too far from here.  It was about 150 miles around it.  

Today were services.  I'll talk about what I've had the opportunity to teach while I've been here in the next blog posting.

God bless you all.