Today was the day; we gathered up the few “overnight” things that we had taken over to Mom’s house and got all her things packed in the car.  Before long, we were having prayer at the house, preparing to drive back over to the church, where “Destiny” was awaiting us.  We got back over to the motorhome and got everything loaded up in the rig; I then took Mom’s car over to one of the church members’ house, that lives right down from the church; we were leaving the car there while we were gone.  I walked back to the motorhome; by that time, Adriene had the coach ready for our departure.  Surprisingly, Mom wanted to sit up front in the passenger seat for our trip; Adriene graciously said Mom was more that welcome to sit up front and enjoy the ride. I was surprise that Mom wanted to sit up front, but she was excited and ready.  We cranked up the coach, spoke God’s blessings over our trip, and we were soon pulling out of the church parking lot, on our way to Virginia, for our “Back Together Again” Family Reunion.

Our trip for that day covered just over 170 miles, so we were on the road for about 3 hours.  Mom was just loving it, as we reminisced about the “good ole days” of our traveling up and down I-95.  It was a really special time for us as we were back on I-95 heading North enroute to “Indian Acres”.  Well, now that I have mentioned Indian Acres a few times, let me tell why we chose that location for our family reunion.  Growing up, Indian Acres was a “camping home-base” for us, and we have sooooo many fond memories of our time there with my Pops and Mom (more on that later).  Our camper that we used during our travels back then, is still parked there (about 40 years now, and no longer habitable); our family has not been back to our “home-base” together since my Pops went to be with the Lord in 1996.  Yes, our heading back to Indian Acres was going to be a special time.

When we were arriving at the entrance, a wealth of emotion began to well up in me and I looked at the Indian Acres sign, then looking over at my Mom.  I stopped at the entrance to get a snapshot.

We were actually at Indian Acres, 2 days before the actual family reunion.  Our initial plan was for us to stay at the Indian Acres campsite, but Mom was going to stay at a local hotel down the road with my sister.  As God would have it, it was getting a little late in the evening and my sister had not arrived yet.  That is when God gave me another desire of my heart; I asked Mom if she would like to stay the night with us at the campsite in our rig and meet up with my sister in the morning; she graciously accepted.  Mom “camped out” with us for the night; thank you again Lord.  Mom is an “early to bed, early to rise” person, so we got her all setup the “Destiny’s Master Suite”, and she soon called it a night.

We were still enjoying the evening and waiting for my sister to arrive.  We convinced her to come by our campsite before going to her hotel for the evening.  She finally arrived and I am always glad to see her; she had a car load of “stuff” because she was designated as the family reunion “event coordinator”.  Yes, I designated her because my sister (Angie) is really good at that kind of thing and she is always the “life of the party”.  We hung out outside and reunited with her so that we didn’t wake my Mom up inside.  Angie stayed for a little while, and we made plans for the next day.  She was a bit tired because she had just driven about a hour and a half after getting off of work.  We said our goodnights, and told her to go and get some rest; she headed to the hotel for the evening.  We stayed up for a little while, then we made ourselves “semi-comfortable” on the fold-out couch/bed that we have in our living room; we realized that we were a bit tired ourselves.  We called it an evening as well.

Today was the big day to start reuniting with family; we were heading to North Carolina to pick up my Mom before heading to Virginia for our “Back Together Again - Family Reunion”.  I was so excited to be going to pick up my Mom because that was one of the desires of my heart.

Side Note:  I am reminded of one of God’s promises to us:  Delight thyself also in the Lord;
And he shall give thee the desires of thine heart. Psalms 37:4

One of my desires for probably the last 20 years since my Pops passed, is to take my Mom on a camping trip, like they use to take us when I was growing up.  To be going to pick up my Mom in our motorhome, and taking her with us to the family reunion was a dream come true for me.  We didn’t get up too early that morning because Mom does volunteer work at her church, and she wouldn’t be getting off until 2 o’clock that afternoon, so we decided to hang around at “Pedro’s” until about 10 a.m.  We took the opportunity to go out and walk the campground, and pray for all of the residents there.  We met a couple of people that were out, and shared our ministry with them.  We find that a lot of people are surprised to hear about what we do; as one gentleman said, “we sure need more of that in this world”.  Our prayer walks are a great time to meet people, and find out what their spiritual needs are.  Even though we were not “thrilled” with the campground, we know that everywhere we go, God wants us to impact the Kingdom of God for His glory.  We got back to our campsite, we built an altar, and prepared for our “later than usual” departure.  We were only putting in about 150 miles that day, so our plan was to arrive at my Mom’s church just before she got off of work.

As we customarily do, we prayed over our travel day, and got back on I-95 North; we almost immediately crossed the state line, entering into North Carolina.

One of my regular stops when I am in North Carolina, is Gardner’s.  That is where I go to get my “fix” of Carolina Barbecue, so Adriene and I made a trip our there to grab a combo plate for dinner (barbecue, cole slaw, collard greens, yams, and hush puppies).  Adriene is not a fan of Carolina Barbecue (pulled pork, with plenty of vinegar), so she got a chicken dinner instead.  It certainly is not the healthiest food, but it is a “mandatory” stop for me when I am in town.

While we were out and about, we got word that Adriene’s Grandma had been in the hospital in Alaska, but had been released, and also her niece, Hanniah, was back in the hospital in Virginia.  We have been praying for “complete healing” for her for some time and our prayers continued that evening as well.  Hannah is 10 years old, and has been challenged by cancer, so we keep the "prayer wheels” turning for her healing.

We headed back to my Mom’s house after doing our running around.  We relaxed for the evening while watching some TV, and preparing for our trip to “Indian Acres” in the morning.  I was pretty excited, because my dream of traveling with Mom in “our motorhome” was coming to fruition.

As we often do, we got up early in preparation for continuing our journey east.  I had gone outside to start packing things away; I also took the opportunity to walk around the campground to see if anyone else was outside at the time.  I didn’t see anyone during that short walk, but by the time I returned to our site, Adriene had received notification that her dad had been admitted to a hospital in Virginia.  I knew in my spirt that it was time for us to go into intercessory prayer mode.  I told Adriene to put on her shoes; we needed to head out on our “prayer walk” together.  We headed out from our site, and started to walk and pray; not only that God would intercede on Dad’s behalf, but we also interceded for all of the residents at that campground.  We always ask God to arrest the hearts of the people where we are, and prepare them for an encounter with Him.  We walked around the campground twice while praying, then returned to our site to get ready to hit the road.  I was ready to bring in our living room slide out, and it wouldn’t come in for some reason; It was then that I “built an altar” at our site, and declared the presence of God there; both in the life of Yanita, and the campground residents, and for the manifestation of healing for Adriene’s Dad.  The slide out came in just fine after the altar was built ...

Knowing that the hospital Dad had been admitted to was along our path, I began to think of how we could make arrangements to go by the hospital to see him.  We had already recognized God’s hand upon the situation, because Dad and his wife Carolyn live in Tennessee, but they were on a road trip to Virginia at the time to visit with family.  Come to find out, the hospital that Dad was at, was in Richmond, Virginia, and our journey was to take us right past Richmond a couple of days later.  We didn’t know how, but we believed that God would work this out somehow.

I finished preparing the outside for departure, while Adriene took care of the inside.  ​

We pulled out of Auburn RV Park and continued our journey heading east.  We serve a mighty God; it wasn’t too long on that same morning, that Adriene received notification that Dad was fine, and had been released from the hospital; (Praise God) for answered prayers.  Our plan was to go to the hospital to be with Dad, but God moved in the situation so fast, that our visit was not necessary.  We just thanked God for hearing our prayers, and raising Dad up.

We decided to make “South of the Border” our destination for the day.  South of the Border has a Mexican theme, but it is NOT, south of the US border, it’s just south of the North Carolina border, in Dillon, South Carolina 😃  We have been past there many times, but we had never stopped there during our travels in “Destiny”.  Years ago, I had taken our daughters there; I don’t remember the occasion, but it was just me and the girls there on a vacation, while Adriene was still in Alaska.

South of the Border is actually a “touristy” spot, so we called ahead and made a reservation for the campground there (Pedro’s Campground).  As you know, I’m not to big on making reservations ahead of time, because you get locked in “having to be in a particular place, on a particular day”, but knowing that this was a tourist area, we made the reservation, to make sure that we had a spot for the night.  Our destination for the night was 428 miles away, so we had another long day of driving ahead of us.

It was a great day of travel; on this trip, I made it a point not to drive through Atlanta, Georgia like I did the last time we were in this part of the country.  That was a pretty bad experience in a 42’ motor coach in a traffic jam; not to mention the rear-end accident that we witnessed just ahead of us (you can read about that in an earlier post).  This time, we took the 285 bypass around Atlanta; that was busy too, but not nearly as bad a driving straight through Atlanta.  We jumped back on 1-20 East and kept on pressing.  Once we got on to 1-95, we headed north, and I knew that it wouldn't be too long before we would arrive at our destination for the evening.  South of the Border is a pretty popular area; maybe because they start advertising on billboards about 100 miles out, and it seem like they have a billboard every few miles; I could only imagine their advertising budget.

Side Note:  I’ve learned that money is no object when you are operating in overflow; there is alway more coming in than going out.  I’m sure South of the Border is operating in “overflow mode".

We finally arrived; once you see the “sombrero tower”, you know that you are there.  We took our exit with no problem, but with signs “everywhere”, we passed right by our turn for the campground, so we ended up going to the service station down the road to turn around and call for directions.  Once we found the campground, I saw why we missed our turn; the sign was across the street, right there at the left-turn intersection, and partially hidden by a fence when coming off of the highway - no previous signs that I could see.  I’ll bet “Pedro’s Campground” gets those “how do I get there?” calls, all the time.  I parked at the campground entrance, and went in the office to get checked in; they assigned us to Site 177, which was on the end of the row.  That was great that we were on the end, which meant that we would only have a neighbor on one side; well, we ended up not having a neighbor on either side, but the open space turned out to be a thoroughfare for motorbikes and four wheelers.  We didn’t know, but Pedro’s Campground is the neighbor of the local dirt bike track, and lots of people choose that campground for easy access to the track.

After it cooled down a bit, we decided to take a walk around the area to check out some of the local attractions. There were lots of souvenir shops, and small businesses, but to our surprise, most of the stores were closed, and very few people were out walking around.  I guess it was the time of the year, but when we I visited there with the girls “years ago”, that place was bustling with people.  We probably just waited too late in the day to go out.  We did visit a couple of shops, doing a little “window shopping”, but we didn’t stay out very long.  We headed back to the motorhome and relaxed for most of the evening.  This was not a “bad” campground, but our level of expectation was a bit higher for “South of the Border”; we jointly agreed that we probably wouldn’t be booking anymore reservations there, but we will likely go back through there for a day trip and check out more of the attractions.

We got an early start; we usually don’t stay around too long the mornings after we spend the night in Walmart parking lots unless we need to make another visit inside.  After a quick snack for breakfast, we headed back out on the road.  My plan was to drive at least 400 miles on this day, since we got off of the road a little earlier than expected the night prior. 

This particular day started with clear skies, and looked to be a great travel day, but it wasn’t too long, and we began to see rain clouds forming ahead of us.  We learned early on in ministry, that just because God calls you out to do a work for Him, doesn’t mean that you wouldn’t experience some storms in your life.  We continued our journey east, but we knew that a storm was looming.  Within a couple of hours, the skies opened, and the rains began to fall.  The rain was coming pretty heavy, and some cars started to pull off of the road, and sit on the shoulder of the road; “waiting it out”.  Seeing those cars pulling over reminded me of a message that I heard a while back that said, “In the midst of a storm, keep moving”.  I thought about that and put on my hazard lights and “kept moving”.  I was also reminded that sitting still in a storm, just makes the storm last longer; in short order, the storm had passed and we were back to clear skies.  Reflecting on the Word of God, Jesus did some of his greatest work in the midst of storms, both in His life, and in the lives of others that He encountered.

We had made our through Louisiana and Mississippi; as we began to draw close to our goal of 400 miles,  we made the decision to stop for the evening in Auburn, Alabama (just over 500 miles).  Adriene did some research for campgrounds in the area, and we decided to stay the night at Auburn RV Park; it was actually very close to Auburn University.  It was about that time, we remembered that some friends of ours (The Jones') in San Antonio, have a daughter going to school at Auburn University (Yanita Jones). We had met Yanita and her family at the Randolph AFB High School, where Adriene did a lot of volunteer worked, and eventually taught there as an Inclusion Teacher and coach. Yanita is also friends with our daughter Alisha; they are one year apart in their schooling.  Alisha is a Senior, and Yanita is a Junior. 

As we pulled into the park, I went inside the office to get checked in.  They were expecting us, since Adriene had already called ahead and made a reservation about an hour prior.  Due to the size of our rig, they had only 2 sites that would accommodate us.  They offered us site “H", and said that we could pull into site “I” if we liked it better.  After plenty of maneuvering the motorhome, back and forth multiple times, we got all settled in to our campsite (H), which by the way, was at the bottom of a steep hill. ​

Adriene made contact with Yanita; she was at work at the time, but she said that she would stop by after she got off.  She actually arrived less than an hour after we made contact with her.  We saw her pull up to our site; after greeting her, we went inside and did some “catching up”.  She shared with us the triumphs and trials of her college experience, and her time of being separated from her family back in Texas.  We had the opportunity to intercede with prayer on her behalf, and for her family.  She was able to spend an hour or so with us, before she had to head to her apartment for the evening.  It was great to see her again, and spend a little time pouring into her life.  We knew that our primary purpose for God leading us to Auburn, Alabama, was for our encounter with Yanita Jones.

I spent the evening doing a couple of minor repairs to “Destiny”; the windshield wiper arm had come loose from the blade, and started to be ineffective, so I aligned the blade the way it should be, and put some “lock bolt stuff”  on there to hold it tight.  I also wrapped a little duct tape around it to cover it temporarily; duct tape to the rescue again.  I also took the opportunity to fix a taillight bulb that that fallen out of the socket; that was a “quick fix” too.

Side Note:  When your “house” is on wheels and constantly riding down the road under “earthquake conditions”, there is often some minor repairs that need to be addressed.  This reminds me of a biblical truth as well; when God reveals an area in our lives that needs work, we need to stop, take the time to do all that we can to “fix it”, and trust God to do the permanent work - we can’t just ignore it, it will only get worse as time goes on.

I also took the opportunity to test out the TV connection that I had put in one of our outside storage bays; it worked like a charm; I told Adriene to come outside to check it out.  I put that connection outside, because the Lord told me that we would need it for the services that we would conduct “under the awning”, and the TV would be used as a monitor for praise and worship, and for announcements.

It’s always an exciting day when it is time to get back on the road, and seeing what the Lord has in store for us.  We were heading East on Interstate 10 in route to my family reunion that was to take place in Virginia.  We hit the road 5 days before the event, knowing that we would have plenty of opportunities to “Build Altars” along the way.  We know that everywhere we stop, God is going to use us for His glory.  We are always looking for opportunities to be a blessing in the lives of the people that God places in our path.  Some of those altars that we build represent big life changing events, while others represent a “seed” that we sowed into someone’s life.  My family reunion was the only thing that we had on our calendar for the next 2 weeks, so our agenda was to lend ourselves to the leading of the Lord.
 
We got caught in bumper to bumper traffic outside of Houston, Texas, which delayed us for about an hour, but we ended up putting in 350 miles on our first travel day and decided to spend the night in a Walmart parking lot in Jennings, Louisiana.  After getting our “home” in place and leveled, we headed into Walmart to pick up a few supplies and groceries for the evening.  Once we returned, we started the generator, watched TV for a while, then called it a night …

This weekend we celebrate the 1 year anniversary of the birth of our vision for campground ministry; “Building Altars from Coast to Coast”. God has truly been faithful to His call, and we are humbled that He would use us as He has. We have had the privilege of building altars for salvation, for healing, for deliverance, for provision, and for rededication to the Lord. The great thing about celebrating our first year in ministry, is knowing that we have only just begun. Our best days are ahead, and we are excited to see what the Lord is going to do next …

​Thank you for your prayers and financial support as we do our part in sharing the Good News of Jesus Christ; building altars unto Him, and enlarging the Kingdom of God …