Trip preparation

The next 2 months we dedicated to prayer and planning. We all sat down with a US state map and began talking about the itinerary. After some time, we settled in on about a 9000 mile trip taking us through 26 to 27 states. In keeping with the vision and theme, we agreed to do some outreach work. My friend Jeff, a Christian from work, told me his church is embarking on a ground breaking project to move their Christian school of 190 kids to a plot of land his church purchased. He indicated to me that they needed help painting the modular buildings. I’ll talk a lot about this later. Needless to say the Lord confirmed this as our first outreach to Christians in need. The other outreach we all decided would be in the hardest hit area of New Orleans. Believe it or not, after some digging on the internet, I found out that there is a part of New Orleans which still looks like it never was touched since hurricane Katrina came through 3 years ago. This became our second outreach to the poor in need and touched believers and unbelievers alike. Jesus Christ stated in Mat 25:33-40 a parable about the judging of the nations and in verse 40 He says “And the King will answer and say to them. ‘Assuredly, I say to you inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me’”. I have personally come to love this parable that exemplifies our Lord and I know Paul the Apostle did as well.
After settling in on these 2 outreachs, the family picked their one special thing to do. I knew what I wanted from the get go; to do an overnight whitewater rafting trip in Colorado. My son Ethan finally told me he wanted to visit Mt Rushmore and a dude ranch, MT wanted to take visit the Grand Canyon and ride mules to the bottom. My son Isaiah is holding out with a special place I am sure. We put together an itinerary, will be a separate post, and finalized the trip preparations. Clothing, food, guitar for worship, bibles, tables and chairs, GPS and other electronics, living essentials, grill, etc. were all gathered and fit into place in our motorhome. We purchased a 2008 Four Winds 26.5’ motorhome in Michigan which gave us space we needed and we did not need to tow a car. We drove it on 3 mini-trips to work out the kinks. (I am sure glad we did now).

Oh yes, there is one small detail I overlooked; people to watch our primary home as we lived in our “mobile home”. Back to prayer! I looked around the church one day and noticed a young couple whom my wife and I have grown very fond of and love greatly. We approached them and they were excited about the prospect of staying in our home with our two Jack Russell Terrier puppies, Zelda and Bandit. Only one stipulation given the hot summer, the pool had to be functional. No problem I thought just another thing to add to the growing list of “To-Do’s. We set a departure date for Monday, June 9, 2008. The Monday after school let out. ”. After 2 months of preparations in our primary home and our motorhome, while holding down a job, and forbearing the record breaking temperatures in Syracuse (low to mid 90’s), we finally left on Tuesday, June 10, 2008 at 10:30am.