Travel plans, clean up items, repurposing things

Plans are forming up for the arrival of our children in preparation for Chase and Makaila’s wedding. Even Joshua is getting his itinerary together so he can serve as best man to his little brother. Maggie, Aaron and the baby will be here in a few days and Brittany will soon follow. By the middle of next week everyone should be at or en route to the farm. It should be a fun time – even though no one will be staying very long during this visit.

In preparation for the visitors Mama and I spent some time in the mobile home getting the beds and other sleeping quarters ready for occupancy. That mostly involved cleaning up mouse droppings in all nooks and crannies that have been neglected in Grandma and Grandpa’s absence. It is not as bad as Mama and Victoria make it out to be but it is a real inconvenience.

Grandma and Grandpa will not be coming back for the wedding. Grandma is feeling too poorly to make the trip. That allows us greater latitude with the bedrooms but it puts a greater burden on me and Mama as far as the farm is concerned. The help I had planned on to do fencing and put up hay will not be coming – so I am on my own for those chores. It also greatly complicates the care of the animals and the gardens in our absence. Oh, well. God will give me the help we need when we need it.

I investigated the leak in our bedroom last night and I could not find anything obvious in the roof or walls of the apartment that would have allowed water to accumulate in that particular spot. When I got to the spot I suspected, the insulation was indeed wet but there was very little water anywhere else to give me a clue how it had gotten to that spot. It was also very clean – as if someone had poured a glass of water there. I will keep an eye on it and see if I can ferret it out during a hard rain – sometime in the near future.

Maggie and Aaron will be with us for our Mission’s Conference. It starts on Sunday the 27^th and runs through the 30^th. It is always a great time. Our church is a very giving church and we are blessed to be a part of the work there. Our church has exceeded its missions giving goal every year for many years. That is an unusual testimony of grace giving. It will be neat to see what God does this year.

Jungle week is coming for the students at BBTI. It is a week before graduation that all the students set up makeshift shelters in the woods on the BBTI property and spend the entire week living in those shelters; really roughing it. In preparation for that a friend at work is donating his old camping gear for the students to use – sleeping bags, cots, a cook stove and utensils, etc.

He and his clan are past the age where that holds any charm to them and the accumulation of those items is taking up space he needs for more a relevant horde of items. When he told me he was getting rid of those things I told him of a recent need I had found out about at BBTI. He was elated to give them to the school; to know that they had real value to supply a real need rather than just be set aside in someone else’s attic  never to be used again.

It really is neat how God works those things out.