A Tour of Sojourner Headquarters --- Camp Bee

We've mentioned Camp Bee, the headquarters for Sojourners in numerous posts since we began this blog.  We thought we would take you on a video tour.  Just click on the videos below to watch them.

Camp Bee Video 1

Camp Bee Video 2

Camp Bee Video 3

Camp Bee Video 4

Camp Bee Video 5

Camp Bee Video 6

We hope you enjoy the tour.

The Workshop is from October 12-22 this year.  We have a listening lab on the 7th and 8th of October and then an Instructors Course for the listening lab on the 23rd and 24th of October.  Following that we will head to Red Bay and Tiffin Motorhomes to have some warranty work, some repair work and some additional storage cabinetry installed in the Trekker.

Finally Some Down time OR What should I do next?

We finished the Sojourn in Saguenay on the 14th of August and drove down to Toronto to see our granddaughter, Amélie and her parents, Mary and Brad.  We got there on Sunday afternoon, the 16th and stayed until Saturday, the 22nd. 

The night of the 21st Amélie spent the night in the Trekker with us.  She is the 2nd of our grandchildren to do that.  Neo being the other.  Phoebe hasn't had the nerve to yet.  Maeda and Rowan have an in-house bedtime routine that precludes their being able to to date and Bela is just too young yet.

We arrived at Shults-Lewis Children's Home in Valparaiso, Indiana in time on Sunday morning (Aug 23rd) to attend services at the church that meets in the school's gymnasium - the Hilltop church of Christ.  So, we are here two weeks early.  The sojourn here doesn't begin until September 8th.

So, what do you do when you've got nothing on the schedule for 2 weeks and you own an RV:  

Well, Irene seizes the opportunity to make cards for grandkids and the children here @ Shults-Lewis and thank you cards for the church in Saguenay.  She also does a lot of beading.  They have Annual Day here (a once-per-year large Fund-raising event) on the 2nd Saturday after Labor Day.  Irene has a booth there where she sells jewelry she has made.

I decided it was time to clean out the Trekker's "basement."  As you know we travel a LOT in the Trekker.  We put about 13,000 miles per year on our rig.  That's a lot of set up camp; live there from 1-10 days; break down camp and move to our next destinations.  So we are constantly getting stuff out of the storage area underneath of the Trekker (the "basement"); using it and having to put them back when it's time to go:  Tools; Bead Crates; Compressor; VBS material; porch mat, macerator equipment, etc, etc.  It would be nice (in this instance) if I was OCD enough to have "a place for everything and everything in its place" but, HEH, I'm 62 and this old dog ain't learning no new tricks!  So, when we leave somewhere I just open a basement door; see if there's enough room to shove whatever I've got in my hand into that space and if so, SHOVE and CLOSE the door.  If not, move on to the next basement door and repeat the process.

So, this past Sunday I totally emptied the basement and vacuumed out the whole area.  Then I went through all that was under there and tossed the trash that has built up; Combined 3 or 4  one half full boxes and got all my tools sorted and placed back in there original satchels and boxes.  Then I labeled all of the storage boxes and put everything back into the basement in a wonderfully ordered manner.  Now the 2 pass-through trays in the basement work as they should - they can pull out from either side and I won't have to stoop or get down on my knees, unload a bunch of stuff that's in the way to HOPEFULLY find what I want and get it out.  The way it should work now is: "My tools are all in this one slide tray."  "All the macerator equipment is in this one mini-bay."  "All the electrical and water hoses are in this tray."  

Well, we'll see how long THIS lasts!

Duck! Duck! Alouette! OR Our Second Visit to Quebec

If you are the slavishly devoted follower of this blog that you SHOULD be, then you remember that one of our sojourns last year was in Saguenay, Quebec.  We returned this year to continue to help Jean and Anne Grenier and the church there to complete work on the old barn ---> diesel mechanic's shop ---> Saguenay Church of Christ building conversion project.

Irene had really wanted to return to spend some time edifying Anne.  This would include L-O-T-S of beading.  Anne loved it when she and Irene did it last year, so a "deja vue experience" (how about that - a little French Lingo in the midst of this French Quebec sojourn report) was in order.  So, last October we signed up to head the sojourn once again.

It ended up that Irene and I were the ONLY sojourners that signed up for the sojourn.  Theoretically, we could have "called it off" for "lack of workers", but we felt that Jean and Anne really needed the emotional support of knowing we wanted to come to visit them again.  Obviously, with the lack of workers, we knew that a great deal couldn't be accomplished work-wise on the sojourn.  So we made it our aim to be more "supportive" of the Greniers and the church.

When we arrived we were happily surprised to see how much had been accomplished in the last year and how close they were to being completed.  Praise the Lord!  Jean's brother, Yves (pronounce EVE), is a private general contractor and he had spent a great deal of time there over the last year.  They had also had a large group (over 20) that had come from one of the churches that supports Jean to help for about 2 weeks earlier in the summer.  Another group had also come up to help from another church.  

So, we will be the FINAL group of sojourners that goes to help the Church of Christ in Saguenay, Quebec transform and old barn into a wonderful meeting place for the church to gather and worship the Lord as they edify, exhort, teach and admonish each other in songs, hymns and spiritual songs; pray together; gather together to remember the sacrifice of Jesus by partaking of the Lord's Supper; Receive an exhortation through the preaching of the word and Gather an offering to reach out into the world with the saving gospel of Christ.  This realization is a little bittersweet.  Kind of like knowing you are raising your children to not need you anymore.  At the time you long for the day that it occurs -- but you loath it when it is upon you.

For the record - Irene did a great deal of paint scraping and wood staining on the sojourn.  For some reason some of the paint that had been applied by the ladies last year (Sue Hughes, Lineta Grimes and Irene) didn't adhere as advertised.  So this year on about 8 panels, Irene had to scrap off the paint to prepare it for repainting.  Also, on the front of building she stained many of the wood planks to give them more "pop" - so they all didn't look exactly alike.  

Since both of her tasks were outdoors, they were weather dependent.  Unfortunately (or REALLY, REALLY fortunately if you want to do a bunch of beading, too), it was very rainy during the sojourn.  In the 10 days of the sojourn we only had 2 or 3 days were it didn't rain at least sometime during the day (often in the afternoon and into the night).  So, Irene and Anne had a lot of beading time on their hands which they were MORE than willing to fill.  Also, one of the other sister's in the congregation Corinne came over and beaded two days also.  Heck, even her two sons - Raphael and Matthew - got into the act and really enjoyed it.  Yves 11 year old daughter Lilyrose was with him also, so she got to learn to bead.

And what was poor, little old Jim (sniff, sniff) doing while Irene was knee deep in beads?  Well, my part of the work wasn't weather dependent!  In fact, they had tasks to do if it was nice outside (get the windows installed in Jean's office area and install the steel on the back of the building) and tasks to accomplish if it was raining outside (frame out the windows inside and insulate and frame out the area around the door that had been installed to the outside from Jean's office).

On the spiritual side of things the MOST significant thing that occurred on the sojourn was Irene teaching a class for the children (Raphael, Matthew and Lilyrose) the Sunday during the sojourn. Anne and Jean Phillipe (Jean and Anne's 17 year old son) translated and helped teach the class also.  She taught the VBS lesson on John the Baptist and his baptism of Jesus.  She also has left the other 4 VBS lessons and crafts (Ruth, Mary, Paul and Silas in Philippi and Jesus) there for them to continue to teach the kids.  For my part, I preached the Sunday during the Sojourn - The Christian and the Word of God Powerpoint presentation that I've made, which I had "translated" into French.  To translate it I used the French Geneva Bible from my Accordance software on my computer for the verses and Google's English to French translator on the internet for the questions.  Then I had Jean Phillipe make the necessary corrections to the Google Translator.  As I preached that Sunday, Jean translated into French.

We also had the blessing of visiting in the home of Daniel and Corinne and their sons the Sunday afternoon of the sojourn.  It was a lovely visit.

We have now bid "au revoir" to Saguenay and Quebec, if it is for the final time since they will not need another sojourn to help finish the building, only God knows, but for now I am putting my non-existent French dictionary and phrase book back on the shelf.

To Designate or NOT to Designate? This is the Question OR o/` o/` It's One, Two, Three Strikes You're OUT o/` o/`

Irene and I have been married for 35 years next month, on September 6th (and NO, I didn't have to ask Irene to make sure).  

During our marriage, we have been to many baseball parks: The Big "A" - Angel Stadium in Anaheim - The California Angels; Chavez Ravine (LA Dodger Stadium); Jack Murphy Stadium (San Diego Padres); The Kingdome (Seattle Mariners - no longer standing); Chicago's Wrigley Field (Cubs) & Comiskey Park (the original park - Chicago White Sox ); The Houston Astrodome (Houston Astros); Riverfront Stadium (Cincinnati Reds);  Separately, I have gone to the NEW Comiskey Stadium (also the Chicago White Sox); Oakland Coliseum And Connie Mack Stadium (Philadelphia Phillies in the 50s).  Irene has gone to Crosley Stadium (in the 50s - Cincinnati Reds).

So, while we were in New York for the Middletown Church of Christ Sojourn I took the opportunity to go to both the New Yankee Stadium (with Martin Buchanan one of the other sojourners) and to Citi Field (Shea Stadium - Home of the New York Mets) with Irene.

Oh, we also went to Cleveland's Municipal Stadium were the Indians played, but it was to see the Cleveland Browns play a football game.

So, here are some pictures of the New Yankees Stadium:

Above is the view from our seats

I love Cracker Jack (the more peanuts at the bottom, the better), but even though the song says "Buy me some peanuts and Cracker Jack" - you'd be amazed to know how many Major League Stadiums no longer sell Cracker Jack!  That oughta be illegal.  Yankee Stadium had the biggest bag of Cracker Jack I've ever seen.

Above is the view from the right field seats and...

Above is the view from the left field seats.

The Yankees won the game over the Seattle Mariners 4-3.  It was a home run fest.  I'm not a Yankee fan, so I was bummed enough, but the "coup-de-grace" is that the margin of victory was a home run by Aurelio "Juice" Rodriguez - A-Rod.  He was suspended by Major League Baseball for using Anabolic Steroids.  In other words, he's a cheater.

The game at Citi Field - Shea Stadium was more to my liking.  The Mets were playing the Los Angeles Dodgers and I have been a Dodgers fan since I was 9 years old.  I used to almost worship Sandy Koufax.  He was left handed and the person that made me realize that my being left handed was good, preferential even.  The Dodgers beat the Mets like a rug. 1 run in the 1st; 2 runs in the 2nd; 3 runs in the 3rd.  I was hoping it would continue. 45 runs would have been nice.  The final score was 7-2.  Here's the picture of the stadium from our seats below:

Just a note:

Citi Field is right next to La Guardia Airport.  During the single 9 inning game we must have seen over 200 airplanes fly low over the stadium immediately after takeoff.

You'll notice how similar the view is (in reference to the field) in both stadiums from our seats.  I always try to up high and as close to right behind home plate as possible.  I think it gives you the best view of the whole park.

So, Jim and Irene, what do you do on one of these sojourns?

We thought we'd take this opportunity to give you a "picture folio" of our work at our most recent sojourn.  It was at the Middletown, New York Church of Christ.

For the last 18 years this church has been meeting at the Howard Johnson's in Middletown in one of the Motel's conference rooms.  The church has grown to be about 60 members over that time.

Three years ago the church was approached by the town of Circleville.  The town owned a building that was built in the 1940's by the Townley family.  It was originally an auction house.  When it was given to the town it was used for year's as a firehouse.  Then, after the town built a dedicated firehouse, the town converted it into a community center.  This caused it to become a well-known landmark within a 10-15 mile area.  So the church put in it's down payment on the building and the town of Circleville is carrying a 5 year note.  The church is required to make a one-time-per-year payment of "X" amount of dollars.

Since they got the building they have been working on getting it habitable. Apparently the town actually dumped it rather than sink the necessary money into it to bring it up to code.  So, for the last 3 years the church has been bringing in the sojourners to help with the necessary work that they have to do to make the required work, modifications and upgrades to get a Certificate of Occupancy (CO) so they can officially move into the building and "open" the building as a church building. (Until they get the CO they cannot have the building open to the public for liability purposes).  We are the 3rd Sojourn that has been here (1 per year) and they are getting to the point where they H-O-P-E to be able to get the CO by the end of this year.

OK, now on to what we had to do this year.  One of the things they needed done was to have a pantry area painted and a shelving unit in it sanded to remove the rust and then painted.  Irene jumped on that.  (After our Midwestern Children's Home Sojourn, Irene had purchased a "painter's kit" and was itching to break it in).  She had gotten pretty confident rejuvenating rusty metal items.  Here's a picture of the renewed pantry and shelving.

They also needed the kitchen (an institutional style kitchen) cleaned.  It was absolutely filthy.  There was 40 years of grease on the stainless steel venting to the stove/fry vat area.  Ethie, one of our fellow sojourners had started on that and once Irene was done in the pantry she helped finish the job.  Irene said in places the grease was up to 3/4" thick.  Here's are pictures of cleaned area.

One of the main tasks they wanted done when we arrived was to paint the walls: First with primer and then with a light beige finish coat of semi-gloss.  Unfortunately the drywallers hadn't gotten done finishing out the drywall.  It was all hung but they were still taping and finish coating the joints.  So the painting would have to wait.... for the most part.

One area that we could paint was the entry.  So this was the next area that the women jumped on.  Since this area was paneling it had to be painted using a brush for the grooves and a roller on the main part of it.  Here's three pics of them putting on the primer.  

Another big task they wanted done was a coat closet.  The room was built with conic blocks on 2 of the outside walls.  So, those 2 walls required insulation.  The whole room would need to be framed in and have drywall hung to get it ready for the drywallers to tape and finish.  Martin Buchanan and I drew that task.  Here are two pictures of our framing the wall that will hold the insulation inside the block exterior wall:

It took us 3 days to get the framing done and the insulation installed. It took us 1 1/4 days to get the drywall installed.  But here is the finished product:

The second week of work we got to the painting and hanging the suspended ceiling framework that need to be done but had to wait until the drywallers were out of our way.

The suspended ceiling framework was handled (for the most part) by some of the other sojourners.  Here are a couple pics of them leveling the outside wall of the room rails in the fellowship area that is just inside the entry foyer:

Now a few pics of them actually hanging the suspension grid from the wires that had been screwed up into the ceiling joists:

Since all of the drywall was "raw" the first thing that needed to be done was a priming coat to seal it and then it could have the finish coat put on it.  Here are some pics of the "before" drywall:

It took 2 days for all of the priming to get done.  Having said that, after any one room was primed (after about 6 hours drying time) we could begin putting the finish coat on.  First, however, the walls would have to be brushed down to get all of the drywall dust powder off the walls from sanding the drywall joints:

Then the primer coat could be applied:

Now it was onto the finish coat on all the rooms that needed painting.  Those include: the entry foyer; fellowship area; 2 classrooms; a cry room; a connecting hallway and the main assembly area.  At first while many of the sojourner ladies were doing the primer coat on the drywall, once we could start, Irene and I did the finish coat.  

As they finished priming the other ladies jumped on helping Irene with the remaining finish painting: 

Since I was going to be teaching class on Wednesday night, I took part of Wednesday off to get my notes prepared.  It would be Lesson 1 of the 10 lessons on "Perfecting Holiness" which would be a workshop I would be teaching on Saturday morning.

Thursday is the final day of a sojourn and we still had lots to do.  We needed to continue on the suspension ceiling in the main assembly hall and clean the floors as well as we could.

I got moved onto the ceiling suspension team for the final push:

We didn't quite get the ceiling in the main hall completed by Thursday, but Bob Jarvis and I were both sticking around until Friday, so we finished it that morning (and even got paid time and a half for overtime - of course 1.5 x $0 = $0.00 still).

We decided to stick around an extra week and just do some relaxing and catch our breath.  Our next sojourn is in Saguenay, Quebec.  We will leave tomorrow morning after meeting with the church one more time this evening for bible study.

Here's a picture of the whole Sojourner team that was at Middletown:

The Things They DON'T Teach You in School OR Chasing a River

We finished the Vacation Bible School (VBS) at the Groesbeck church of Christ in Cincinnati Ohio on the 2nd of July.  It went very well.  6 children attended - 4 of which attended because we had passed out 700 invitations to homes around the church's building.  That was nice.  They all had a wonderful time.  Now the members have to step up to the plate and have classes ready for them to attend on Sundays and Wednesdays.

We drove to Lafayette and spend the 4th of July weekend with Neo and her parents.  We parked in Frankfort, at the congregation I preached at for 12 years (they put in an electrical hookup for us).  Neo came and spent the night of the 4th of July with us so she could go to services with us on Sunday morning.  Sunday evening I had the opportunity to preach there.

On Monday we had to take the trekker to get the Driver's Side Rear Ride Height Leveler adjusted.  Now it's working great.  I also had the dreaded and loathed "shot in the eyeball" doctor's appointment on Monday.  That evening Steve (Neo's dad) and I went to see Terminator:Genisys.  It was pretty good.

Tuesday morning we left for Middletown, NY and the sojourn with the church there.  We got as far as Streetsboro, OH on the first night.  We stayed at a KOA there.  We left at 8:30 AM Wednesday morning and got all the way to Middletown, NY by 4:30 PM.  Sweet!

Coming into NY we went over a river.  When we looked it up it was the Delaware River.  LO AND BEHOLD!  I was born in Pennsylvania and was taught that the "Delaware River is the border between Pennsylvania and New Jersey."  Your a kid and you hear what you are told.  You believe what you are told.  It's like I thought it was a line that was between those 2 states and those two states alone: "the Delaware River is the border between Pennsylvania and New Jersey."  Yesterday was the first time I realized that the Delaware River kept going.  I got to looking at the map last night (Wednesday, July 9th) and realized that it is also the border between Pennsylvania and New York State for a ways too.  Then it turns north (and a little east) and splits into the Eastern Branch of the Delaware River and the Western Branch of the Delaware River.  These two branches have their beginning in the Catskill Mountains of New York.  OH COOL!  Since I read the works of Irving Washington as a kid (Rip Van Winkle and the Legend of Sleepy Hollow) which are set in the Catskill Mountains, I've always wanted to visit them.  SOOOO, today was "ROAD TRIP!"

We got in the car and headed for Stamford, NY which is where the Western Branch has it's headwaters.  Along the way we stopped for lunch in Phoenicia, NY.  If you are in the area, Brio's Pizzeria is a great place to eat:  Good Food; Good Portion Size (meaning - BIG).  As we continued to Stamford we saw a sign that pointed to Roxbury, NY which is where the Eastern Branch of the Delaware River has its origin, so we went over to it first.  Having found the Eastern Branch beginnings in a bog near Grand Gorge after about 30 minutes of chasing it down, we headed to Stamford once again.  This one took us about 20 minutes to find the headwaters area.  It was on private property, so we couldn't get in to see it.  We had to settle for the place about 3/10 of a mile away where it emerges into view from River Road.

I know feel infinitely smarter knowing the truth about my beloved "Border River" the Delaware and I've gotten one thing checked off of my "bucket list" - I've seen and driven through the Catskill Mountains.  My only regrets are I didn't see a headless horseman or a bunch of little men bowling.

HOOKUPS?? We don't need no stinking hookups..... or do we?

We finished our Sojourn at Mid-Western Children's Home on Thursday, June 18th.  We had to head over the Lafayette, Indiana because I had a Board of Directors meeting at Shults-Lewis Children's Home on Saturday, the 20th.  Following the meeting we had lunch with my sister, Charlynn and then we had dinner with one of our 6 year old granddaughters, Neo and her mom and dad (Kazumi and Steve).  Then Steve and I (for Father's Day) went to see Jurassic World.  It was totally predictable, but would you want, or expect anything different? 

The board meeting went well Saturday, but it was l-o-n-gggg (9 AM - 1 PM).  We headed to Lafayette and had dinner with Irene's sister, Kathryn and her children Kendra and Krista and her husband DC.  That was nice (all except my forgetting to get back my credit card after I paid for dinner.  DC had to go to the restaurant to pick it up this past Wednesday when I realized I didn't have it).  

Sunday morning I preached in Frankfort, Indiana at the congregation I had preached at for years before we began sojourning.  Following that we buzzed back to Ohio.  

Our next Sojourn (and we are presently in the middle of it right now) is at the Groesbeck church of Christ in the Cincinnati area.  Irene and I had gone over on the last Sunday in May to get "the lay of the land."  At the time they had NO hookups of any kind.  Hookups for RVs consist of:

1. Electric - 30 or 50 Amp depending on what the needs of the RV are.

2. Water - most RVs have an "on-board" water tank that's between 75 and 100 gallons.  But that's only for use while traveling.  Typically RVs hook up to a water line on site.

3. Sewer - Waste water.  This comes in 2 forms: Gray Water - this is from the sinks; shower and washing machine and; Black Water - from the toilet(s).

Well, the church building had ZERO hookups.  They did have a breaker box in the basement 140 feet away from where we would be parking.  However, they didn't have any kind of outside water bib or a "clean out" that we could dump in.  They did say that before the sojourn began they would put an outside water bib in and pull electrical line from the breaker to our parking area.  OK, let's do it!!!

When we arrived there on last Sunday the electrical and water hookups were in - GREAT!  Er, not so fast.  It ended up that the 140 feet of wire had a 13 Volt line loss.  At our rigs we were getting 105 Volts. OUCH!  Nothing will burn out an RV A/C air conditioner faster than low voltages.  Try as we may, try as we might we couldn't get the voltage up.  Also, the hose that was run back to the rigs was not potable water hose.  That could be easily fixed.  So, after a great deal of trying to work on the voltage, the decision was made to move back over to Mid-Western Children's Home and commute over everyday for the sojourn.  We felt bad because the church had done all they could to try to make it happen there, but we couldn't take the chance of burning up our rigs electrical system.

Today the Hughes and we went to the "Creation Museum" over in Northern Kentucky just across the Ohio River from Cincinnati.  It was pretty nice.  It had some beautiful gardens.  The museum itself was pretty good.  I wasn't particularly impressed by their emphasis on proving that dinosaurs actually existed.  I (JIM) have a different view.  I believe fossilized dinosaur "bones" are red herrings placed in the ground so those that don't want to believe in creation can have a grand time "chasing their tails."  As it says in 2 Thessalonians 2:10-12 -- "and with all deceit of unrighteousness for them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this cause God sendeth them a working of error, that they should believe a lie: that they all might be judged who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness."  Irene believes that dinosaurs lived prior to the flood.  She disagrees with my view as stated above.

We start our VBS (Vacation Bible School) Sunday night.  It runs through Wednesday night.  Then we will head to Lafayette for the 4th of July weekend and an eye exam for me to see if I'll need to get another shot in the eye.  That will happen on Monday, the 6th.  The next day we head to Middletown, NY for our next sojourn.  Life is great!  Our God is great!