It Begins

Sunday morning in Alabama, we headed out to the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church. In case you were thinking, yes, our group was the only white people in the congregation. It was a really good service. The choir sang four songs, at different times, and like any good southern church for the song "I can't stop praising my Jesus" it went on and on and on. I thought it was great because it reminded me of what heaven will be like and how we will never stop praising our Jesus! "Can I get a witness?" Amen! Rev. Arthur Price, Jr. asked that question a few times. Rev. Arthur was a very good southern preacher, lots of volume and knew his scripture well.

The sermon topic was "Change at the Core" using Romans 12:1&2 as the scripture. In Romans were are asked to present ourselves to Christ, then to separate ourselves from the world, and then to transform ourselves into becoming more like Christ. All of this change needs to come from the inside out by the renewing of our minds. Rev. Price used the analogy of a thermometer an a thermostat. The thermometer simply reads the temperature, it conforms to whatever is around it while the thermostat changes the temperature around it. I believe that God wants me to change my temperature to be like His and through my change maybe others will be changed around me.

This church, the Sixteen Street Baptist Church, has history in the whole civil rights movement here in Birmingham Alabama. In 1963 four teenaged girls, who were getting ready for Sunday School, were killed when the church was bombed. There is a lot of history here and we only know a small part of it. I am so thankful that things changed and I pray that today people of all colours and races will know and believe that ALL of us our created by our Heavenly Father and we are ALL deserving of love.

We felt very welcome in this church as many people came to greet us after the service. If you are ever in Birmingham I would suggest you visit them on a Sunday morning.

For lunch the whole group went out to eat at a Chinese Buffet. There was lots and lots of choices and I am sure that none of us went away hungry. Back to the "camp" we went, for naps and socializing while we waited for the groups that were coming in for the week. They arrived shortly after supper, filled in the paperwork, and we all had a short meeting before retiring for the night.

Monday morning we were up bright and early packing our lunches before 6:45 am and having breakfast at 7. After eating we participated in a short devotional before heading out to pack up the trucks for the supplies needed for each job. Today we had four jobs going, and our job had a few things that needed yet to be done to complete a home for a lady. Her home is situated in the middle of the bush, yet she is only five minutes away from Walmart and Home Depot. A very beautiful location with lots of trees, it felt very secluded. We, that is our group, installed some lights, almost finished installing some laminate flooring, hung some mirrors, put up crown moulding and trim. Thankfully, in our group, we had two electricians and a floor installer, which made doing this job much easier.

Came back to camp, unloaded our supplies and enjoyed our supper. Had another group meeting and retired for the evening only to repeat the whole thing again tomorrow.

Thank you Lord for people who are willing to serve in your name.

Alabama

The weather improved so we investigated the city of Montgomery. We strolled through Old Town, choosing just to see the buildings from the outside rather than take the tour since we felt it was not worth our time. Headed over to an area very similar to the Forks in Winnipeg where we walked along the river after we had enjoyed a southern barbecue lunch. The pulled pork and the chicken were delicious but the ribs were lacking in appeal.

Back on the road we headed up to Birmingham or rather the small town of Leeds just on the East side to check out an outlet mall. I was able to find some items at one store and a few things at another but otherwise it was not as successful as I had anticipated. For supper we drove a short way to a store called Big Bass Pro Shop Outdoor World. Wow! I thought Cabellas's was big but this was much bigger and way cooler. Even the parking lot was beautifully landscaped. We didn't think we could camp here overnight so we headed back to the mall where the one security guard I asked said it should be no problem. We find a quiet spot in the back next to a river and settled in for the night. Tim was already snuggled in bed and I was just finishing getting ready when we heard a knock on the door "security!". I opened the doer only to be told that we could not camp here but we could camp over at Big Bass Pro Shop, so off went.

We enjoyed a quiet night amongst the treed parking lot and in the morning we went for a lovely walk through the forest, where we discovered a lovely pond with a little dock. It was very picturesque and we enjoyed it very much. That afternoon we drove a very short way to the Barber vintage museum which housed many many motorcycles that spanned the ages from the first motorized bicycle to the latest models. It was very informative and quite interesting to tour through. It would have made it even better had there been a race going on in the track right next door.

Even though it was Friday and we did not need to be at the MDS site in Birmingham until Saturday we decided we would head there anyway as we did not know what else to do. We parked temporarily in the lot for the night as we needed to wait until a different camper moved out in the morning. Coming early gave us just a few more hours to visit and get to know some of the people that we will be spending our time with here.

Once the other volunteers left in the morning and the new ones arrived in the afternoon we moved our camper into position and got everything hooked up and connected and now we are ready to begin our work. Tim and some of the others went to visit the Zoo today, but I stayed behind due to my foot still being a bit sore.

Tomorrow is Sunday and we look forward to attending church and hearing the word of God preached.

God is merciful!

Driving

We had originally planned to stop and see what could be seen in Mississippi but since it was cool and very foggy we only made a couple of short stops along the way. We drove the scenic route which was indeed very scenic, driving along miles and miles of sandy beaches. Due to the weather the beaches were empty but I could easily picture them on a hot summer day filled with couples and families basking in the sunshine, splashing in the ocean and building sand castles.

For lunch we found this cool place called The Shed where they make really good barbecue food. The food was very good, the meat was very tender and the place was interesting.

Arriving in the rain in Mobile we chose to watch a movie since walking in the rain with the strong wind blowing did not sound too appealing. Our night sleep was not so comfortable as the humidity was extremely high and the temperature felt very warm and in the morning it was still quite warm. By lunchtime it had cooled off considerably but it was still raining so instead of trying to find things to do we drove on our way to Montgomery.

We did make a stop at Priestners, a lovely shop that sold pecans and all kinds of other gifts. Tim bought his share of pecans, unfortunately for me most of them contained sugar which as you may know I cannot consume at this time, so I was out of luck but I did find some really cute baby gifts for our grandson (who should be making his appearance into this world at the end of March).

The rain was still coming down so we were hopping to do some shopping at a mall but the mall did not have any shops that we wanted so instead we saw another movie and bunkered down for the night in the mall parking lot. Thankfully the wind died down and with our furnace going we had a very restful and peaceful sleep.

Thank you God for your peace.

New Orleans

This morning we got a ride into New Orleans and into the French quarter where we began to explore the area to see what we could find. We decided to take a carriage ride to learn some history and to hopefully see more without walking everywhere. For lunch Tim chose to stop at the place where the po boy began. When a grocer decided to create a sandwich for the poor workers with bread and meat and sell it for a reasonable price and today they make them with a multitude of various ingredients. To me, it is a Orleans version of a submarine sandwich.

We did some more walking and looking and then took a ride on the streetcar and headed towards the Garden District. Upon arriving and making a few miscalculations we finally find the place to start on our walking tour. We walked slowly as my foot, the one I broke a year and a half ago, was giving me some pain, but then again we did have to walk carefully as the sidewalks were very, very uneven.

There were a variety of homes to be seen and the weather was perfect. It was a lovely day to take a walk. We got back on the streetcar to take a longer ride up Saint Charles Ave and see some more old homes and then to turn around and come back towards the French Quarter. After more walking we stopped for supper at Muriel's in Jackson Square. We had a delicious supper! More walking and then we called for our ride back to Jude Travel Park.

All, in all we had an enjoyable day and a good visit in New Orleans.

Thank you God for all that is good.

Plantations

Woke up this morning to the sounds of birds singing good morning, although Tim was not quite as pleased with their singing. Got on our way to Plantation Parade.

Our first stop of the day was Oak Alley Plantation (http://www.oakalleyplantation.com/welcome.html). This home had a quarter mile of 300 year old live oaks framing this classic antebellum mansion. The grounds are amazing! Tim was loving it! The pictures do not really do it justice. We really enjoyed ourselves and even had a good lunch at their restaurant.

We also took a short bike ride along the Mississippi River levee not just for the fresh air and exercise but to get another view of Oak Alley.

To get a different experience we choose to visit a Creole Plantation called Laura. We learned that Creole is not a nationality but a way of living, it is cultural. Creole is made up of French and German and African people. They were a colourful people and family was very important and family was business. If you choose to leave the business you were kicked out of the family (kind of like the Amish). The interesting thing is that they found Laura's memories and have been able to piece together much of the history of the home and the time period. http://lauraplantation.com/ A very interesting tour, and the way the house was built with cypress wood, and the wood beams still looked like new.

Back on the road we headed for New Orleans. We booked into Jude Travel Park as we knew that trying to park an RV in the city would be next to impossible, so here we are relaxing and enjoying ourselves.

God is great!