The weekend has been work, wedding, wayfaring and wevival.
Work
We will cover most of the work in a post later this week but Kelly Jo and I were well pleased with the progress we made on the house the few days we were at the Ranch. We are especially pleased with how things came together Friday. We have some great pictures to share with you later.
Wedding
The word of the week is wedding. All weddings are a big deal but this wedding was a really big deal. Deidre, my oldest niece, married Ben Shoemaker from Mississippi. She is the first grandchild in our family to marry and it was a beautiful wedding.
I think everyone in the family had a job to do and every one performed their assigned duties very well. I am sure there were hiccups along the way but they were certainly not noticeable to the rest of us. The wedding began at 6:30 and at 10:20 there were still a lot of people standing around visiting. It was very comfortable.
Deidre spent four years at Bible college and a year running a Christian school, but before that she spent several summers traveling with us. Many of you remember some of those summers as she visited a bunch of churches with us during those times. Those were precious weeks and I see that even more now.
Ben and Deidre are now married. May God bless them with great years together as they serve HIM as a team.
Here are a few pictures before the wedding. For MANY more pictures you can check out Odie's post from Saturday.
Cousin Reva and Lynn were up from Kentucky for the wedding and they wanted to see the house. They came over with Dad and Uncle Jerry and Aunt Garnetta for the first post wedding tour. I say first tour because I think Kelly Jo gave tours for about an hour or more after that!
We only took pictures of a few visitors but we appreciate all the interest in the house we are building for Odie to live in.
This precious sister is Ben's grandmother and goes to Little Rock Assembly in Waynesboro. The church sent an offering toward the house so we were very glad for them to be able to have a representative here to see the house in person!
Ben's father and mother.
Ben rinsing off the car after the groomsmen had finished their job.
Late Saturday night Kelly Jo was carrying something in and found these two cute little turtles. She fell in love but she is committed to catch and release when it comes to pets!
Saturday morning Kelly Jo had quite a bit to do in order to have the bus ready to ride. I had some work to do to get the house and barn ready to leave. We were up early and did not leave until after 11:00 AM but I think we might have ended up with most things in the proper place.
We did take time for a few pictures. This is Kelly Jo and Lisa below with a makeshift table for Odie's dining area.
Who needs a table? I ate my breakfast enchiladas in a pie plate in her dining area.
Wayfaring
I think we left the barn about 11:15 and hit the road. Traffic around Cincinnati was fine but as soon as we turned northwest on I-74 the wind picked up. It became worse and worse the farther we drove and caused me to remember how miserable it can be to drive a bus on some days.
When we turned west on I-70 in Indianapolis the wind was slapping us broadside from the south. We did not see any wrecks but lots of large trucks were drifting and often jerking violently to the right because of the wind. We were only averaging about 60 MPH but we were using a bunch of diesel and muscle to stay on the road!
We were headed straight into a storm so we decided to stop in Effingham, Illinois for a nap and supper while the storm passed. We had only driven 277 miles but my shoulders were very tense from fighting all the wind. The break did me good.
We were hoping the wind would die down after the storm and it did. The temperatures dropped about 20 degrees too. That was nice.
You can see in the picture below that after the first storm band passed us, we had a break. The second band was only rain and mostly dissipated as it approached us.
As we opened the blinds to leave there were several people in the parking lot taking pictures of the bus. What? It sure looked like they were taking pictures of the bus but once we turned around we could see the rainbow.
It was large. It was bright and it was completely visible from side to side. Several people in Illinois have a picture of the BoggsMobile surrounded by a rainbow.😚
It was late in the evening Saturday by the time we skirted around St. Louis so we had no traffic slow downs to speak of. We pulled into a rest area off of I-44 in Missouri about 10:00 PM eastern time and then converted to central time for the next couple of weeks.
We rested pretty well in the rest area and then pointed the BoggsMobile once again toward West Plains, Missouri Sunday morning. We had one stop at Flying J to empty our holding tanks and the rest of the drive was uneventful. That is how we like it!
Sis. Galiher took this picture as we were driving to the church from town and sent it to Kelly Jo.
We unhooked the Green Machine in the gravel parking lot across the road.
Revival
Kelly Jo parked the BoggsMobile and we spent most of the evening loading in equipment, setting up and sound check.
Soon it was time for revival to begin and we were excited to get started. We have always loved revivals here and this one is off to a super great start. We are expecting wonderful things all this week.
Davy and Pastor Dwain Galiher
That wraps up our weekend! Thanks for stopping into sit a spell.
Davy
