Spring is here!!!

Well, spring actually arrived here several weeks ago. With the arrival of warm weather and daylight hanging around a little longer, we've been spending way more time at the campground. Only 4-1/2 weeks until opening day. Can you say "Scared witless"? I thought you could...

Jack's daughter sent us a new picture of Jenna with their Lab puppy, taken at the end of February.

She's so cute, but I guess my opinion could be considered a wee bit biased.


Mission Trip

Jack and I went on a mission trip to Bogalusa, Louisiana last week. A total of 30 people from our church loaded up on a bus and spent a week working on homes damaged by hurricane Katrina. It seems that if folks didn't already have a pile of money hanging around somewhere, they got overlooked when it came time to help out with repairs.


The work that we did was organized by a group called WEROC, which is a conglomeration of churches and civic organizations that is trying to help out the folks who fell through the cracks of insurance and FEMA. Their website is www.weroc.org.


Because our group was so large, we split up into several smaller crews and tackled 3 large jobsites and a couple of smaller ones. The first jobsite we visited was a house trailer that was probably 30-40 years old. A tree had fallen on it during the storms, knocking about half of it down. The lady who owned it was living in a tiny FEMA trailer. FEMA was getting ready to take the trailer back because she'd had time to get hers fixed - only problem is, she didn't have any money to fix it with, and it was beyond fixing, anyway. There wasn't anything that we could have done for her, either. The trailer was just too far gone.


The next jobsite we went to was her sister's doublewide. The roof had lifted off of it during the storms, letting a lot of water inside and causing damage. Two months after the storms, her husband had left, taking most of the insurance money with him and leaving their two little boys with her. She'd had to have the doublewide moved onto her parent's property after the divorce. It wasn't set up yet, and some of the floors had been damaged during the move. Her church had helped her tear out the damaged walls, ceilings, and floors, and put up new sheetrock.


Our crew that ended up working on it repaired the floors, leveled up the halves with each other, hung up the rest of the sheetrock, and finished & painted all of it. They also laid vinyl tile on the floors, put the molding back on the walls, and moved some of her furniture back in for her. When she saw the trailer on the last day, she started to cry and said it looked like a home for the first time in 2 years. She still needs to get a plumber and an electrician to finish hooking everything up, then she can get her electric and water hooked up. She expects to be able to move in within a month or so.


Her sister, who we couldn't do anything for, was thrilled that we had been able to help. She worked 3rd shift, but would spend her mornings running errands and getting materials to help rebuild her sister's trailer. Wow.


Another jobsite we were asked to go to was a disabled lady's home. It hadn't been damaged in the storms, but she'd become dependant on a walker and wheelchair to get around. The steps into her house were really steep and she couldn't get down them without help from somebody, which meant she had to wait for somebody to come get her since she lived alone. She needed a ramp.


Jack, our pastor, and one other guy went to talk to her and put together a materials list on Monday morning. Jack says she was very unbelieving that she would get any help. Apparently, she'd been asking her kids to build a ramp for her for a couple of years now, and they hadn't done it yet. I can understand why she'd think "Yeah, right! You don't even know me, so I know you're not going to help me...".


I was on the work crew that went to her house on Monday afternoon. Some other ladies went with us and went inside to talk to her. I stayed outside and helped work on making the ramp. While we were there, her medicine was delivered. She came to the door and looked out. Her ramp was well on it's way to reality. She saw it and smiled for the first time that we'd seen, probably for the first time in a long time. The ladies who had spent the afternoon with her said that she was a very bitter lady. She'd had a rough life and was pretty much all alone in life. She'd given up hope.


We finished the ramp on Tuesday, and the change in her was incredible. What had been a lonely, bitter woman was now a smiling, chatty lady. It was amazing. If you've ever wondered about God's timing, consider this - she told us before we left at the end of the week that she'd made up her mind the day before we showed up that when her medicine got there on Monday, she was going to take all of her heart & pain meds and just go to sleep. If we'd waited until Monday afternoon, she would have been gone. God is always right on time. More wow.


The last large jobsite our group worked at was another doublewide. An elderly man who'd had a stroke lived there - his wife was younger, but she stayed home to take care of him. He spent most of his time watching television. He wouldn't talk to anybody, and was likely to cuss you out if he did speak. He'd basically given up all hope, too.


The storms had lifted the roof on their house and blown out some windows. They were fortunate enough to get some money from insurance and a little from FEMA, too. They weren't so fortunate in their choice of contractors to fix the damage. When our crew got there, the roof was fixed and some drywall was hung, but not finished. The hot water heater hadn't worked since the storm, and there was a gaping hole where a window still needed to be replaced. If it got cold at night, they slept in their Blazer to stay warm. To bathe, they would fill up a wading pool outside and let the sun heat up the water.


The crew started working on their trailer on Tuesday. Jack and I joined them on Wednesday. I was inside, working with drywall mud for the first time in my life, when somebody came through the house, telling everybody the pastor wanted us outside pronto. When we got out there, he was holding his Bible and talking to the couple. It turns out that they knew about God, but they didn't know God, and they wanted to. They said they'd seen the love of God in our group, in our behavior towards them and towards each other. All of us that were there knelt to pray with them as they asked for salvation. Another "WOW!" moment. I don't think there was a dry eye in the house, er', yard. When we left at the end of the week, the gentleman had come out of his depression and was smiling and laughing, interacting with people. His wife said it was the happiest she'd seen him in years.


Most of us had been on mission trips before. This was my third one. We've always seen the physical fruits of the work that we do. We hear about the spiritual fruits after we leave. This was the first mission trip that God allowed us to see some of the spiritual results of our work. Wow oh wow oh wow.... what a blessing!

Facing the Giants

If you ever get the opportunity to watch the move Facing the Giants, do it. The acting could be better, but the story and message are wonderful. It was filmed by a church somewhere in the south and is the story of a losing high school football coach who hands it all over to God and says "Your will be done" and challenges his team to give everything they have for the glory of God, win or lose. It is a true story of a guy who is now a preacher. His life completely changed for the better with that one change in his attitude.

I would have never watched it if our pastor hadn't rented it and shown it at the service Sunday night. There weren't many dry eyes in the house at the end of the movie, inexperienced acting and all, and one of the questions in the movie made me, and a lot of others, think. Are we really doing all that we can for God? I'm not so sure that I am.

I'm thankful for the opportunity to watch this movie, and for the questions it's raising. If we never question, we don't grow. I don't want to be stagnant - I want to do the best that I can for God and grow through it.

Little Ditty, 'bout Jack & Lori

And here's the story of how Jack and I met... warning - this long, and full of little details that may or may not interest you. They interest me, and they're part of my memories.

***************

I had been part of an internet based group of folks who ride the same kind of motorcycle I did. I'd met quite a few folks face to face over the couple of years that I'd been a member, always with Steve at my side, who was my husband at the time. He'd been dubbed by members of the group as The One Who Never Speaks. He never spoke, just observed.

Things went south in that relationship in the summer of 2001. We wanted different things out of life, and neither of us were the easiest to live with as a result. Shortly after we split up, I took a solo trip on my motorcycle. It started the healing process. Everyone should have something in their life that is therapeutic. At that time, riding was for me.

I had been invited to a barbecue in Georgia. Mind you, I lived in Ohio at the time. My friends said "Now, we know it's too far for you to come, but we wanted you to know that you'd be welcome..." I had some vacation time built up and took a little over a week of it. Then I made a comment on my motorcycle groups that I had a week, who wanted me? I know, that was a loaded question for a recently separated lady to ask a group that was primarily men.

I received a lot of offers, but chose people who I knew. Most of them I had met in person, others were married with respectable jobs and families. I made sure to take enough money with me that I could stay in a hotel if I ever got to a place that made me uncomfortable. The group was also very tight knit, and I knew that I'd be safe by staying with the well known list members.

First, I rode to Dalton, GA and stayed the night with a firefighter and his wife. From there, we all rode over to north east Georgia to the barbecue. We all stayed the night there, along with quite a few other folks who had come in. I managed to surprise a lot of people by being there. My next stop was to be in Charlotte, NC, to stay with a guy and his family that had helped me put my bike back together the year before.

One of the folks in Georgia told me while I was in the area, I *really* needed to check out a road that went from North Carolina into Tennessee - the Cherohala Skyway. It wouldn't be very far out of my way, and it was absolutely amazing. Lots of riders come from all over to check out this road - I'd heard about it from the members of the motorcycle groups I belonged to.

So I'm making my way across this road. It is a 50 mile road that goes over the mountains, reaches over 5,000 feet in altitude. There are a lot of places to pull over on the road to take in the scenery. I stopped at every one of them. With every stop, I fell more and more in love with where I was. There was a peacefulness and a beauty that I'd never found anywhere, any time before. I didn't know it at the time, but I really do think it was God's way of telling me where I belonged. By the time I was halfway across the road, I'd made up my mind that I was going to move there, maybe close to my friends in Georgia who weren't too far away.

I'd been keeping my groups updated on where I was, where I was headed, and they all knew I was going to be wearing a school bus yellow riding jacket and had a huge black motorcycle that was kind of rare. One of the groups I belong to has always stressed the importance of wearing good protective gear - full faced helmets, armored riding jackets or suits, gloves, good boots, that kind of stuff. They all knew where I was going to be heading that way on that day.

The Cherohala Skyway ends on the TN side in Tellico Plains. From there, I had to basically turn around and head back east on a different road to get to where I was supposed to stay the night. Once I'd crossed the road and turned off to head in the right direction, I was passed by a rider going the other way. He beeped and waved, I beeped and waved back. I remember thinking "I probably know that guy", but couldn't for the life of me remember who lived in the Tellico Plains area.

I toodled along on my merry way, wondering who it was, but not really expecting to find out until that night when I checked my email and found the person saying "I think I passed Lori today...". The next thing I now, that same person beeped, waved, and passed me, going the same direction, and the chase was on. I followed him to a church parking lot and stopped with him. If I hadn't already had the thought that I probably knew the guy, I wouldn't have stopped, but I was curious about who it was that had turned around to run me down.

We got stopped and got our helmets off. I remember the first thing I notice were warm, hazel eyes. Smiling eyes. Then a friendly, rugged face that was genuinely happy to see me. He stuck his hand out and said "Hi, I'm Jack Hunt. You must be Lori Lovejoy." We chatted for a few moments, he warned me about a place to watch out for speedtraps, and then we were both on our way.

I went on with my trip. I stayed that night just outside of Charlotte, NC. The next night was in Bethesda, MD, with a guy who works for the FDA and his wife. She's from Texas and makes a mean taco. I met a couple other new folks that night.

From MD, I went on to Newport, RI, and stayed with one of the guys who helped to pay for the motor in my bike, and his girlfriend. After RI, I rode up to the middle of Maine and stayed at Piper Pond with a retired engineer and his wife. He had the ultimate setup - a barn full of bikes, and lived right on the edge of a gorgeous pond. If it weren't for the ultra short riding season there...

From Maine, I rode south and met up with another guy on the group, who rode with me as far as the New York state line. I stayed that night in Stanton, NY, then went on to Pittsburgh for the next night and stayed with a couple I'd met at a group gathering or two. After that, I went on home, figuring it was time.

I rode over 4,000 miles in 8 days. I put a lot of faces with names on the internet. It was a very fun trip, and I had a lot of time to think about things. I saw new places and revisited places I'd lived when I was little. I was a lot more at peace with my life than I was when I left.

When I got home, I couldn't get the north Georgia/SE Tennessee area off my mind. It was stuck there, and the more I thought about it, the more I knew I was going to move there. I started talking more with my friends in the area, getting a feel for the job market and how much it cost to live there, that kind of stuff.

The guy that I stayed with in Maine made a comment on our group list about how Jack should have to pay a special tax because of the great place that he lived. I quoted that and wrote to Jack privately and said something to the effect that I didn't realize he lived in such a prime location and asked if he wanted a room-mate. It was a light-hearted attempt to be friendly. I still remembered his eyes and how friendly and warm they were, but I wasn't looking for anything more than a friend.

He wrote back with a long explanation of how he'd been through a horrible marriage and divorce and had been living alone for a long time and wasn't sure he wanted to try again, but he thought it was time and he was wondering if there was anybody out there for him and .... it was pretty long, and pretty deep stuff. He ended it with an apology, saying he didn't mean to lay all that on me.

I remember this so clearly... I wrote back these words - "You never know, we could be made for each other and just not know it yet." From that point on, we emailed back and forth daily, sometimes several times a day. It got to where I was anxious to make it home to check my email to see what he had to say. We had so much in common. We had a lot of the same ideas about life, relationships, what we wanted in a life partner, all kinds of stuff.

Then came 9/11/2001. I was in an internet chat room when the planes hit. The first person I thought of to call was Jack. Our first real voice-to-voice conversation was that day. I guess you could say that was the beginning of our deeper relationship, the beginning of what we have now. We finish each other's sentences, give voice to the other's thoughts. We'll be married for 3 years this May. It feels like it's been forever, in a good way. We just fit together in so many ways, so well. I am so blessed.