Camping is not for me.

Hello. I just wanted to check in and let all who read my blog know that I am alive. We have had an insane first couple of weeks of deputation. We have discovered that anyone who cashes in their 401K at retirement to live in an RV needs psychological help =) God has moved in a powerful way in all of the church services that we have been to and so far, we have received a partner in mission financial sponser for our church plant in Cleveland at every service. The insane thing has been just meeting our basic needs. Upon leaving Marietta, we noticed that our electiricty kept going off, our battery kept draining, and nothing would stay on. We thought surely this can't be normal. We took it where we bought it and they checked the battery and said it was fine. Well, we lived for 4 days with no electricity or battery power in our BRAND NEW 5th wheel. The whole point in buying new was so that we wouldn't have these problems. My lowest point was spending the night in a wal-mart parking lot. We were getting little to no sleep and just literally fighting to get dressed as all of our water was cold. We went and bought an RV 101 book and found out our converter blew. Of course we discovered this on July 4 and nothing was open until Monday, July 6. We are in Bangor, Maine right now and found a place to fix our converter yesterday! Praise God for that. Also, the Maine district restored our faith in people when a couple of local pastors offered to get us a hotel from Saturday- Tuesday so we wouldn't be cave men anymore.

We had to pay to fix our converter and are now fighting with the warranty people to cover it. Why in the world would you want to spend your retirement tinkering with an RV when you can live in a house? Also, all these people that sleep in tents for weeks............what are they thinking? I have discovered that I am a spoiled 21st century girl that WILL NOT be happy without electricity and hot water. Thankfully, I can acknowledge my materialism=) I don't feel bad because I know that 99% of Americans feel the same.

On the bright side of things, since our 5th wheel couldn't get fixed, we were able to spend the day on Monday in Acadia National Park and Bar Harbor, Maine. People from all over the world were there to see this stunning work of nature. Wow! It was gorgeous. From what I've read Acadia National Park is the 2nd most visited National Park. Reese had a blast catching bugs and putting his feet in the cold sea. Another postive thing, we are making great strides with the "big boy" potty finally. Reese has what he calls "twinkling" down pat. He is keeping himself dry. Just pray that he gets over his fear of the "other" thing on the potty so we won't be elbow deep in it anymore.

I also found out that the state of Maine has only 1.9 million people in it. It has 40 UPC churches. Cleveland, Ohio has 3 million people and only 6 UPC churches spread throughout the metro area. We have a lot of work to do. Keep us in your prayers and the other churches in Cleveland that a spirit of revial will sweep the area.