Just The Way We Like It!

Friday was a longish travel day for us. We drove 336 miles from Paducah, Kentucky to Vonore, Tennessee. 

336 miles. For many years, 800 to 1000 miles each day was normal for us and we scheduled accordingly. That is no longer the case.

Two or three years after buying the bus, we started shooting for 550 mile days as our normal "long" day. We kept that pace pretty much until Covid. We have been trying to drive no more than 350 miles a day the last three years unless it is an emergency.

In the last six weeks, we have been able to do much better than that and we love it just like that!💕💕💕

The 336 mile day was our longest mileage day since October 9 when we drove 342 on our way toward Oklahoma. We stopped for the night in Missouri.

Our next travel day was 113 miles.

Then 143 miles.

37 miles.

19 miles.

19 miles.

212 miles.

169 miles.

108 miles.

179 miles.

109 miles.

172 miles.

And finally 68 miles.

That is nearly seven weeks with only one 200 mile day, only three more days over 150 miles and one three week period with less than 80 miles total! That is amazing and we love it just like that. 

Plus, the BoggsMobile went from October 9 to November 13 between fuel stops! Yay!

We will ruin this soon by traveling over 6000 miles in less than 24 hours. Thankfully, the bus is not going.

Thank you for stopping by today.

Davy

High and Lifted Up!

Bethany Revival Center in Wichita has an elevator outside to assist people getting inside. They added it when they moved to their current location and it is a great help to Odie.

This weekend we encountered a first for us, a church with a lift onto the platform! We have been to churches that have ramps to the platform and a ramp is a super great help. 

 Landmark Tabernacle in Sand Springs, OK has a lift! Wow!

I think the church was required by authorities to have either a ramp or lift and for various reasons, they chose the lift.

The lift is in a room next to the platform.

And you exit the lift onto the platform behind the back wall.

Odie put it to good use, for sure! So cool! Anything that makes Odie's life easier and our life easier is Way Cool!

Davy

In Need of Joseph!

In one hour period this week I had two vivid nightmares. Wow!

In the first, Pastor Jimmy Millikin and I were driving around looking for the BoggsMobile. I had parked the bus in front of a church that I had just begun to Pastor. That day was my first service. Some of the time I was driving and some of the time, Bro. Millikin was driving, but we could not find the church.

We would say, "I think it is down this road" or "It must be over here", but we would turn and we were wrong every time. We drove and drove and drove, looking for the bus, but never found it. It was so frustrating!

I knew I had parked the bus right out front. 

How could I misplace the bus?

Why had I accepted the Pastorate of a church?

Why couldn't two grown men find neither the church or the bus?

Arg!

In the second nightmare, Odie was driving a small car pulling our huge tent trailer and I was riding in the tent trailer. There was a window in the tent trailer and I was talking to Odie on speakerphone and giving her turn-by-turn directions. 

There are so many things wrong with that scenario.

We were going to a preacher's house way out in the country. We barely know this preacher and his wife was riding with Odie. In real life, I am not even sure if I know what this preacher's wife looks like so I have no idea why she was with Odie.

We were coming to the last turn onto a long gravel drive and Odie missed the turn.

Our signal had gone weak and I could hear them talking, but they could no longer hear me. We were on a small country road so I opened the window and then opened the door, flailing my arms trying to get Odie's attention. It took nearly a mile for her to see me and to stop in the middle of the road.

I knew that Odie could not back into a driveway to turn around, but I knew I could. As I was getting into the driver's seat, I woke up.

The first nightmare left me in a cold sweat the second left me a nervous wreck. If anyone receives the interpretation for either, let me know. We need a Joseph to step up.

Thank you. Have a great day.

Davy

Y'all Be Careful Out There, Ya Hear?

This is some kind of wasp that looks similar to a yellow jacket. 

All these wasps were on one nest hanging from a building overhang a few feet from our bus door Monday. We pulled in and idled the engine next to the nest while we were leveling, going in and out of the door several times.

We never even saw the nest at all until about 5:00 PM that afternoon. It looked like they were covering the nest about three or four deep! Ouch!

Thankfully, it was cool and they were not moving much and were not interested in us. It would have been terrible if we had stirred them up with Odie in her chair trying to get in the bus. 

Monday night, Bro. Rich and Bro. Metheny killed them with wasp spray and the picture above was the remains.

Y'all be careful out there, ya hear? Thank you for reading.

Davy

 

An Active And Productive Week

Please pray for the situation in Israel.

Our week began Monday morning at the Illinois Welcome Center on I-70 West just across the line from Indiana.  The night had been nice and cool so we did not need air conditioning. We almost needed a little heat. 

Although I was up way too early, we did not start super early because we were only about 2.5 hours from St. Louis and we did not want to hit the city during rush hour.

We eased around the south side of St. Louis and headed southwest on I-44 with no problems. The weather was perfect and the traffic was not bad. We fueled up at Love's in Rolla, Missouri and stopped for the night at a large rest area near Conway, Missouri.

We drove 342 miles Monday.

The schedule for Tuesday was light, so we did not leave the rest area until after 9:00 AM. We arrived at Lambert's Cafe about 10:00 41 miles from the rest area.

We enjoyed a super great meal and then rested in the bus another hour or so before finishing the drive to Coachlight RV Park in Carthage, Missouri. The full mileage for the day was only 112 miles. Yay! We are now about 677 miles from home.

In years past we stayed in this park a bunch in our two previous fifth wheels. In fact, we ordered our Kountry Star Fifth Wheel next door at Coachlight RV.

The last time we stayed here may have been in June 2015.

That was a lot of miles ago. 

The last two days were set aside here at Coachlight RV Park to work on our 990 Form for the IRS. As a 501c3, Boggs Family Ministries is required to complete a 990 by May 15 or November 15 with an extension.

It takes us a complete day to gather the information and fill out the form online and file it electronically. Filing online is mandatory so we pay a company to file it after we have filled it out. Their software is clunky, but it checks for errors and is very helpful. The price is completely reasonable.

Using their software has helped us tremendously. The reoccurring information is saved from year to year. That saves quite a bit of time. They make a few changes each year and we often need to go back and run through a section again.

KJo and I are getting better at this each year. Part of the improvement is that we know the information the IRS is looking for and we are getting better and saving the details in the proper format.

About the time we get it down pat, the gov'ment will change it up!

We took another full day to catch up on ministry and personal bookwork. We were so close to being completely finished when we quit Thursday night.

We are about 140 miles from Bethany Holiness Church and we plan to finish the trip this morning. The first service is tonight and we need to get there, settle in and get our sound set up. As far as I know, we will only be singing and Bro. Randy Webb will carry the preaching load.

Thank you for stopping in today.

Davy

Another Circle Behind Us

We are already in the second day of our next trip, but I need to recap our last circle. We were gone four weeks exactly, September 8 to October 6 and drove the bus 1761 miles. This is our approximate route.

We preached three revivals and attend two camp meetings and two single services in churches. The stops included in Thomasville, Alabama, under our tent in Richton, Mississippi, Moss Point, Mississippi, Tanner Williams, Alabama, Semmes, Alabama and Bond, Kentucky.

We also did the special singing at Pastor Stringfellow's camp meeting in Alabama and attended three days of Bond camp meeting and preached one morning.

This circle was intended to last until December, but we had a schedule change in Texas and I made a course correction. That correction included taking the tent trailer to Ohio. 

In planning the trip to Ohio, I realized we would be going through Kentucky during Bond camp meeting. That worked great for us and we were thrilled to be there.

It also gave me a chance to schedule a stop at East Tennessee Luxury Coach to repair a small bus problem. I will try to tell you more about that later.

Now we have begun what would have been the second half of the bigger circle. We will be in seven meetings in Oklahoma, Kansas and Missouri before taking the bus back to Tennessee and flying to Africa for a short mission trip.

Big wheels keep on turning. Thank you for following along.

Davy

Where And Why?

It occurred to me while I was driving today that I had not brought you up to date on our whereabouts for the next several days. Where are we and why?

If you looked at our schedule two weeks ago, you would be excused for thinking we left Alabama yesterday afternoon on our way to Texas for revival beginning Wednesday. That was the original plan.

Plans are always subject to change and the church we were going to had a change of plans nearly two weeks ago. I shifted gears and decided to make a very quick trip to Ohio in order to deliver our tent trailer to the barn where it needed to be.

Going to Ohio opened up two opportunities. First, I was able to schedule a quick trip to East Tennessee Luxury Coach to have a wheel seal replaced and secondly, we should be able to stop for a couple days of Bond Campmeeting. We are on our way to see you, friends. Surprise!

Then we will drop the trailer at the Lazy OD Ranch and make our way to Oklahoma. The change in routing added 700 miles, but it will save me many more miles later by having the trailer in place. Adding Bond Campmeeting to that was like a cherry on top!

With the trip to Texas deleted, I was able to accept the invitation to preach Sunday night at Allentown so we can add that to the plus side too. All in all, the change worked out fine.

Yesterday we finished the first leg of the trip. We left Tanner Williams at 6:30 and we were hooked up to the trailer and leaving Allentown by 7:00. Eleven hours later we were pulling into East Tennessee Luxury Coach in Vonore, Tennessee. I drove the bus 508 miles pulling the tent trailer and KJo and followed in the Jeep.

That is probably the longest bus travel day since Covid and absolutely the longest day pulling the trailer in a few years. I am really glad to have that day over. Hallelujah!

That is where we are and the why. I hope we see you along the way. You can find our latest schedule changes HERE. Thank you for stopping in.

Davy

Remembering Again September 11, 2001

Nearly 3000 people died on American soil on September 11, 2001 because religious nuts hated America, hated capitalism, hated our system of government, hated anyone that did not serve their god and tried their best to destroy us.
 
It must be said loudly that most followers of that same religion did not, do not want to kill Americans or destroy Americans. But it must be said just as loudly that these men killed Americans in the name of their religion.
 
3000 lives ended in a moment. 22 years later and people are still grieving, still hurting, still crying and still trying to live on. 
 
Many in the world would like us to forget.
 
Many in the press would like for us to forget.
 
Many in the government would like for us to forget.
 
But we must never forget.
 
Families were forever changed and scarred. 
 
Parents lost children. 
 
Spouses lost their companions. 
 
Friends were separated forever. 
 
Many businesses lost key employees. 
 
New York City Fire Department lost 343 firefighters. 
 
New York City Police Department lost 23 officers. 
 
New York City Port Authority lost 37 officers. 
 
Over 3200 children lost at least one parent.
 
How could we ever forget?
 
We must never forget. We must never omit the details. We must never sidestep the truth to avoid hurting a snowflake's feelings. Those 19 hijackers and the men who sent them did not care for the feelings of thousands they hoped to kill.
 
We must know. We must learn. We must remember. We must care. We must remain vigilant. We must never forget.
 
September 11, 2001 made me want to pull people I love closer and let them know how much I care for them. It still does. Nearly 3000 people lost their lives in NYC, Washington DC and Shanksville, Pennsylvania. The more I read the stories of victims and survivors and heroes, the more I value life at its very core.
 
Life is valuable. Life is fleeting. Life is too short to waste on ourselves. God help me to remember.
 
We visited the 9/11 Museum and Memorial in August 2014 and 2016. These two visits had a sobering impact on our family. We were seeing many of the film clips and pictures for the very first time. I have described it as an emotional punch in the gut.
 
The hours we spent there were some of the most sobering, severe and significant hours in my life. It is a place that haunts not only my sleep, but often even my waking hours. It may seem cliche but I assure you it is not, 9/11 changed our lives forever, even those of us that were thousands of miles removed from the destruction.
 
In the museum I came to the slow realization that we are not talking about a group of 3000 random people being tragically killed, which is heartbreaking in itself, but we are talking about 3000 individuals, all with families, hopes, dreams, ambitions and plans.
 
The personal cost, the personal hurt, the personal tragedies are completely overwhelming when standing on their own. To hear their voices, to see their pictures, to watch video clips of them with their families, to hear their loved ones talk about them is powerfully poignant. When you put it all together in one event and attempt to add up all the loss of real, living, breathing humanity, it is unfathomable!
 
Consider just one personal story we learned there. It is the story of Captain Terrance S. Hatton the commander of Rescue 1 in Manhattan. Captain Terry Hatton was killed in the north tower when it fell. 
 
His wife, Beth Petrone Hatton was the Executive Assistant to Mayor Rudy Giuliani. She was standing on the steps of City Hall as the World Trade Center collapsed. She knew exactly where her husband was at that moment.
 
Captain Hatton was a man of duty. He was 41 years old and had served the NYFD for 21 years. In those 21 years he had earned 19 medals for bravery including the highest award in the city, the Medal of Honor. He was considered by those that served with him as one of the best.
 
Beth Petrone knew all that. She knew her honorable husband would be on the highest accessible floor conducting rescue operations. That was his job and he did it well.
 
As she watched the tower fall, she instantly knew he was dead. The dust engulfed City Hall and Beth found herself holding handfuls of the debris thinking she was somehow holding her husband.
 
They found Captain Terry Hatton's remains two weeks later and buried him in the fashion of the hero he was. By then, Beth Petrone Hatton had learned she was expecting their first child.
 
Terri Elizabeth Hatton was born in May of 2002. She is a beautiful young lady now and she will never know her heroic father except for stories. He will never hold her. He will never tuck her into bed. He will never read to her. He will never walk her down the aisle. He is gone. Beth lost her husband and little Terri lost her Daddy, simply because he went to work that morning.

That is the story of only one man that died and it does not even include the hurt of his parents, his siblings, his other relatives, his friends or the men he worked with and all the rest he left behind.

Multiply that one story by 3000 plus stories and you have not even begun to scratch the surface of why we should never forget!

Maybe you will enjoy your family today. Maybe you will go to church and worship. Maybe you must concentrate today on walking through your own personal hardships or even tragedy. Wherever you are and whatever stage in life you are in, please take a moment to think about all that were lost on September 11, 2001. 

Take a moment to remember. Take a moment to consider what might have been. Take a moment to pray for Terri Elizabeth Hatton and many, many of thousands of others that are moving forward and trying to overcome each day.

I believe we owe them that much.

Thank you.

Davy Boggs

Now We Wait!

Now We Wait!

I mentioned Tuesday that we would need to begin the tedious process of the Nigerian Visa application. That very day, I waded into the deep hole and KJo finally dropped the FedEx envelope in the box about 6:15 Wednesday evening. Wow! What an experience!

They have simplified the actual application by about five pages. I do appreciate that, but the website is still incredibly buggy, clunky and slow. We were so happy to get that part finished and paid for Tuesday night, but the journey was only beginning.

After the application is completed for the Nigerian Consulate, then we have to print the application, print the payment receipt AND print the payment acknowledgment slip. 

Payment receipt and payment acknowledgment slip? What is the difference? Who knows!

The proper thing after that is for both of us to make an appointment and travel to the consulate in New York City. We need the printed application, receipt and acknowledgment slip plus our passports, new passport-type photos, proof of flight and hotel reservations, a bank statement and a pocket full of money.

Then we leave all of that in NYC and go back in 8-10 business days and pick up our passports and hopefully the approved visa. Sounds completely simple, right? Yep, easy-peasy! NOT!

Since two trips to NYC are not feasible, we pay a company $240 each to carry the stuff into the consulate for us and pick it up when it is finished. The fee is way higher than it was 16 years ago, but I am sure they earn their money.

We send them all the things above and a big fat check, including more Nigerian government fees and wait a couple weeks for them to do their magic. Once they have the Nigerian visa in hand, they will overnight our passports and visas to us.

Hopefully, we did everything correctly and the applications will sail through and the visas are approved. Then we will work on trying to get the right flights for the right dates and all will be set.

After we are reunited with our people in Nigeria, it will all be worth it. I am looking forward to that!

Thank you for dropping by today.

Davy

More News On Nigeria

More news on Nigeria

Unfortunately, we missed our scheduled trip to Nigeria in 2020. The world took a turn upside down and we were not able to go in November/December 2020.

By early fall 2021, I had only been back on the road a few weeks after being sick with COVID-19. I was still using supplemental Oxygen and could not handle the long trip so we set our sights on late 2022 for our Nigeria trip.

2022 did not work because of Nigerian Visa problems. It is best to apply for our Nigerian Visa about 90 days before the trip so in July of 2022, I began to check on the Visas. I found that the Nigerian Consulate had temporarily stopped Visas for US citizens and would begin shortly.

By October they had gone through about four different reasons why they could not process Visas, but they were still not issuing them. I have to send my actual passport with the application and I needed my passport for travel in November so we finally called off the trip.

We were all disappointed, but there was nothing to be done. We shifted to planning for 2023. That has been the strategy all year.

With Bro. Shobanke in the US, sick and unable to travel home, we did not know if we should proceed or not. I told you yesterday that he was able to travel home and we are praising God.

As I visited with him the day he left, he plainly told me that he wanted us to come to Nigeria this year. He made me assure him that even if he passed away tomorrow I would do my best to go to his people in Nigeria.

I promised him that if we can obtain Visas and his people will allow us to come, we will certainly do our best to keep our commitment to him.

So, by God's grace and help, KJo and I plan to leave for Nigeria, West Africa in the last few days of November for about two weeks. If all goes as planned we will preach to all of Christ Ambassadors churches on the first Sunday along with a Minister's Conference and an outdoor Gospel Crusade while we are there.

We are now beginning the tedious process of the Nigerian Visa application. It has always been incredibly complicated and also expensive in the past. I will let you know if anything has changed.😊

KJo and I are concerned about my ability to make the trip physically as well so we would appreciate if you would speak to God for us. Would you pray for us through the whole process beginning now? Thank you very much.

AND thank you for joining us for a few hours today.

Davy

I Ought To Be A Whole Lot Better!

We are nearing the end of August 2023 and I need to mark a milestone before August slips into September.

In August 1983 I talked to my Pastor at the time, Pastor John Lamb in Harveysburg. I had been working through something in my mind for quite a while and it was time to talk it over.

On Saturday night or Sunday night, I told Bro. Lamb that I was feeling like that maybe I was going to preach at some point. He talked a while and said, "No better way to find out than try. You are up Thursday night." I was halfway expecting him to say something like that, but I did not feel ready to do it.

We talked some more and by the time I left him that night, I was scheduled to preach my first sermon the following Thursday night. If I was scheduled to swim across the Ohio River, I do not think I could have felt any more nervous. 

Thankfully, he did not announce it to the church and I am not sure I told anyone either.

I preached my first sermon on the Love of God from the Gospel of John. I had some scriptures scribbled down and a few main bullet points and I cried the whole time. We had a pretty good altar service and I remember being relieved and happy when the service ended.

The second sermon was preached a few weeks later from Ezekiel 33 about the Watchman. It also went pretty well and the people responded very well. I began to think I might be on to something.

The third time was an unmitigated disaster. I have no memory of my text or subject. I only remember that I stumbled and bumbled my way to a pitiful end. I learned a hard lesson.

I kept the notes of the first two efforts for several years. I had them with other sermon notes in a book that I laid on top of the car while loading the car after church in the mid-1990s. I drove off and left the book and never saw it again.

The book also had a page with important facts and dates, including the dates of my first sermons. I know the first time preaching was a Thursday night in August of 1983 and I think it was August 18. I could have been August 11, but I think 18.

Either way, it was 40 years ago this month that I preached my first sermon. I am thankful the first time was much better than the third time or I might have never tried again.

40 years is a long time to be doing anything. After thousands of sermons, I ought to be a whole lot better.

Thank you for stopping by today.

Davy

We Have Hit The Weather Jackpot This Summer!

Please tune in tomorrow for Part 1 of a special Word For Wednesday. I would be honored to have you join us.

We Have Hit The Weather Jackpot This Summer!

Vance Havner said,

Whether the weather be cold or whether the weather be hot.Whether the weather be good or whether the weather be not.

Whatever the weather we’ll weather the weather, whether we like it or not.

And while that is true and while that is clever, the fact remains, we have hit the weather jackpot this summer!

In May, June and early July 2022, KJo and I were in Arizona and southern California. Later in July we were in Kansas If we had been in those same locations this year, we would have roasted in no uncertain terms.

In fact, had we been almost anywhere in the USA this summer, other than where we have been, we would have been hotter than most summers and much hotter than we have been.

We hit the weather jackpot this summer, no doubt! Hallelujah!

The temperatures have been in the 70s and low 80s for most of our time in the northeast and that seems to be the forecast for the rest of our time up here as well. Vermont later this week is low 70s and even 60s one day. Unfortunately, the forecast includes a little rain.

Early on, we had some 90 degree days in southern Maine, but it felt nice and mild to us for the most part. The high only lasted an hour or two each afternoon and the humidity was completely tolerable for us. We can handle that and we did handle it just fine.

I have been getting texts regularly from friends across the country showing me temps in the 90s before 8:00 in the morning and still in the 90s as the sun goes down. Many of our friends had temperatures in the upper 90s or 100s nearly every day in July.

Yep, we hit the weather jackpot this summer!

We will head back south within a week and we are likely to encounter some oppressive heat before fall. We have two revivals in south Alabama and tent revival in Richton, Mississippi and all three of those are likely to be hot.

There is a chance that Mississippi tent revival will make us pay dearly for the beautiful weather we have thoroughly enjoyed the last five weeks. OR perhaps fall will swing into the south and we will breeze right through it.

One thing is for sure. Whether the weather be cold or whether the weather be hot.Whether the weather be good or whether the weather be not.

Whatever the weather we’ll weather the weather, whether we like it or not.

Thank you for dropping by Mile Markers today.

Davy