Odie Loves Her Grandparents

Hey Friends, 

This is Odie reporting in from West Plains, Missouri. It has been so good to be with Pastor Dwain Galliher and our friends at Junction Hill Pentecostal Church this week. God planned this week, it is amazing to sit back and watch Him orchestrate His plan. 

After service tomorrow morning we will be heading south. Please pray for us as we travel for our safety and for good weather. Our next two revivals in Alabama and Mississippi are outside. 

Last Sunday was Grandparents Day in the United States. It made me think about my my champion grandparents. I know my Gran and Papaw and Mamaw and Papaw are no strangers to the blog, but they deserve an extra shout-out. 

I thank God for my grandparents every day! I have four of the best grandparents in the world! From day one they have been a huge part of my life! They have showered me with love and encouragement my whole life and they are some of my biggest encouragers. 

I would not be where I am today without them. They prepared my parents to be awesome parents. I will forever be thankful to them. The six people in this picture below are my favorites! I do not want to think about life without any of them. 

Gran and Papaw (Danny and Betty Morgan) and Mamaw and Papaw (Martha and Eugene Boggs) I love all of you to the moon and back! Words can not express my appreciation for you. I am so thankful and proud that I get to have you as my grandparents.

I treasure my position as your oldest grandchild although I gladly share you with the other grandchildren. Thank you so much for investing in me and making me a better person. 

You are an amazing gift from God to me! I am hundreds of miles and hours away from you, but I am sending you this virtual hug! 😘😍

I am a blessed girl. Not only do I have my four grandparents, several other people across the country have  adopted me as their grandchild. I love each of them and I am thankful to have them in my life! Thank you to all of you who have a special role in my life. I cherish each of you! Thank for being my family too!

Thank you for stopping by to visit with me today. I am happy to show off my grandparents to the rest of the world. I hope you have a great weekend. 

Odie 

On The Road Again Newsletter September 14, 2018

Thursday we sent the snail mail version of Odie's newsletter. Today I am posting it here for you. On The Road Again is an important part of staying connected to our families and the churches where we have preached. It is a project Odie started shortly after we went back on the road nearly 16 ago and it has been well received.

2003 was well before social media begin to come of age. Although we had ditched a land line, we only had one cell phone in the family and we were lucky to be able to check our email more than once a week. 

Not much internet connectivity here.

Our family did move into the smart phone age and began to tap texts and emails with our dinosaur fingers, but we kept right on plugging along with On The Road Again newsletter and eventually our website. We still send hand written "thank you" notes and even the occasional letter.

We know that we could probably connect with more people by diving headlong into social media, but we are happy to be free from the corresponding drama of social media. We are satisfied speaking to the millions, OK, just one million, that read this website and the hundreds that receive the newsletter.

I think it might be nice to hear from Odie concerning the newsletter. In the interest of investigative journalism, I asked Odie some hard hitting questions about On The Road Again. Odie's answers are below in red. I hope you enjoy our fun little interview.

-When did you begin the On The Road Again newsletter and what did you write about? 

We sent the first issue out on February 6, 2003, one month after Dad resigned the church in Wichita and we hit the road. 

I wrote about the revivals we had preached in Oklahoma, Kansas, Tennessee and back to Kansas. I also wrote about pulling our trailer to Ohio for licensing, visiting family, attending one morning of the Minister’s Conference in Strawberry Plains and a couple more of the churches where we had preached.

I ended the first newsletter with this, “Well, I hear the truck starting so I better go ‘cause we’re On The Road Again!”

How old were you at the time?

 I was 17. 

Do you remember what gave you the idea to begin a newsletter?

That is a good question, I am not sure what gave me the idea, but I asked Dad if he and Mom would help me do it and he said they would. He likes to say, he bought the paper, the ink, the envelopes, the labels and the stamps, edited the content, printed the letter and allowed me to soak up the credit. It is pretty much an accurate statement, but it was MY idea! 

How did it start out?

We sent it to our families and the churches we had recently preached in or were scheduled to preach in. It turned out to be a great way to keep our family and friends informed about our life and schedule. 

We have pretty much kept it that way. Although the address list has grown by leaps and bounds, we have purposely kept the number in check so that we could be good stewards of the resources God give us.

How many issues a year do you publish?  

We have published between 4 and 7 issues a year. We have tried to settle in at about 5 issues each year.

Do you do it all by yourself or is it a team effort?

It is absolutely a team effort! My Mother has taken a larger role in recent years. She does the layout, helps Dad with printing labels and often helps me with stuffing envelopes, labels and stamps. We started having the newsletters professionally printed a few years ago. It adds a little to the expense, but it gave us a lot of flexibility in design and a nice looking presentation.

You are in your 16^th year of writing the newsletter. Do you have any favorite responses from readers of the newsletter?

I love getting feedback from readers. So many stories come to mind. 

In 2007 we sent the song Bro. Joe Bill Houston wrote, “Fix It Man” to southern gospel radio across the country. My Friend Ambrie was much younger at the time and she read about the single in the newsletter. Her mom told me that Ambrie was ready to sit and listen to the radio until she heard us on XM Enlighten. 

My cousin in Kentucky told us one time that their pastor read our newsletter to their church. It was a church we had only preached in one time. Then they had special prayer for us. That was an encouragement to us. 

It must seem like a chore at times. What keeps you motivated?

Yes, at times I get writers block when I sit down to write the newsletter. Then I start rehearsing in my mind God’s blessings and all of the great people we have been around the previous weeks and that motivates me. 

The process of preparing them for the mail gets overwhelming. As I mentioned, Mom helps me and sometimes others chip in some labor. My friend Autumn Galiher helped me this week.

I like to go through the address labels and think of our friends and pray for them as I am preparing the envelopes for the mail. When someone lets me know they enjoy reading, it encourages me to keep sending them!

Do you intend to continue?

Yes, we plan to continue to publish the newsletter for the foreseeable future. Our newsletter has been an official part of Boggs Family Ministries for several years. Although we have a website with news of our family and ministry and our schedule, the newsletter is still a great way to let people know what is going on. A lot of churches post it on their bulletin board. Hopefully it reminds people to pray for us.

That is all for the hard hitting news today. Thank you for reading today.

Davy

I am hoping this link with take you to the PDF of the September On The Road Again newsletter. I have been trying to do this for a long time and I think I have finally done it!

If not, here is a picture of the September 2018 On The Road Again Newsletter.

Algebra Is An Important Component to Owning A Bus

My brother Steve keeps me cracking up with his humor and wit. I always look forward to his take on things. Steve had a great observation when the house for Odie was finished, the dedication was over and we were preparing to hit the road, without running back home every few weeks. He said, "Now you can go back to having nothing to worry about but the bus."

Truer words were never spoken.😊

Seven days after leaving the Lazy OD Ranch the BoggsMobile and Tent Trailer were parked on the side of the road and I was pouring gallons of water into the coolant system so we could finish our trip that day. Yep, back to the bus.

One thing we love about documenting events here is that this space serves as a great reference tool. When I need to know exactly which week we were in Central City in 2012, I google boggsblogs Central City 2012 and just like magic, the answer appears.

Three years from now when I can not remember how to check the SCA level in my coolant or recall how I managed to get the coolant/water ratio back to 50/50 I will find the information in this post.

That is groovy.

Everything was knocked out of balance when we lost some coolant from the BoggsMobile when a 3/4" heater hose busted as we drove between London, Kentucky and Central City, Kentucky. I gave the lowdown on the saga up to that point on Tuesday the 4th.

I added a bunch of water to the mix after the leak was stopped. Last week I needed to get the coolant/water ratio close to 50/50 and also get the right amount of SCA's in the coolant for the health of the big Detroit engine. Both proved to be a little more difficult than I imagined.

There was no way I could drain all the coolant and flush and refill it at the church and it was impossible to go to Nashville or Vonore to have it done while in revival with several other things going on.

I could find no one in Central City or Madisonville that had the proper coolant test strips or any SCA additive. There were a couple of places that had the test strips, but they are time sensitive and these were way out of date, as in many years.

I called the Speedco near Franklin, Kentucky and drove a little over an hour to purchase a bottle of SCA additive and get some test strips. They do not sell strips, but I had explained on the phone and they gave me three. I tried to buy them, but they had no way to ring it up.

Next I needed to find the correct coolant formulated for the Detroit engine. I could easily find 50/50 Final Charge, but I needed full strength to get the antifreeze percentage up. 

No one in town had full strength, but I finally found a few gallons at Auto Zone. Since they did not have enough, the lady called a store in the next town and they had plenty. You know the best part? It was $8 a gallon cheaper than Auto Zone.

Bumper to Bumper in Greenville had Prestone Command full strength antifreeze for my engine, pre-charged with SCA's. Perfect.

Later I found that Rural King had a different brand in stock. Rural King should have been my first stop. Where else can you by food, feed, guns, tools, live chickens, furniture and the proper antifreeze for a Detroit 60, all in one spot?

I did a little math to figure out how much full strength antifreeze I needed to add in order to get the mixture close to 50/50. I may not have needed several things I learned in school, but Algebra was absolutely necessary. Pre-Calculus has been a total waste for the 33 years since I took it in school.😉

The coolant capacity is about 17 gallons mixed 50/50 antifreeze/water. I lost 10 gallons or so and replaced it with 10 gallons of water. That means I now had 7 gallons of 50/50 mixture mixed with 10 gallons of water. That is 3.5 gallons of coolant and 13.5 gallons of water or about 20/80 mix.

IF I drained 5 gallons of this mix that would leave 12 gallons at 20/80 which by my calculations is about 2.5 gallons of coolant and 9.5 gallons of water. I knew I could drain about 4-5 gallons by removing the hose from one of the valves just forward of the radiator.

If I added 5 full strength gallons of the correct coolant, that would bring the mix to 7.5+ gallons of coolant and probably less than 9.5 gallons of water, a whole lot closer to 50/50 than I am now.

After idling I could then check the SCA level and add the proper amount of concentrate and be on my way.

I was able to drain a little over 4 gallons by hooking a hose to the valve that goes forward to the Aqua Hot.

That allowed me to get a five gallon bucket under the end of the hose easily. The coolant I drained tested low, between 500 and 800 for SCA's, which was to be expected.

Coolant goes in the little door to the right of the top of the ladder. That is where the surge tank is.

I added 5 gallons of the new coolant. 4 gallons barely raised the level to the bottom of the sight glass. We cranked it up with the bus AC blowing full strength so the engine would get warm. In 40 minutes it was up to temp and the radiator fan began to cycle onto the low setting and back off. I let it run about 10 more minutes.

After cooling down, I drew some coolant from the tank and it tested good for freeze protection and good for SCA's. The level was between 1200 and 2000. The strip said 1200 was ideal and 2000 was OK. I did not have to use the additive I purchased at Speedco since the new coolant was pre-charged with SCA's.

I would not have been surprised if I had to add more coolant while traveling this weekend, but I did not. Evidently there were no air bubbles. I love it when a plan comes together.

I drove a few hundred miles to West Plains, Missouri. Everything still looks good and no "low coolant alert" on the way here!

Until I get this flushed and filled later, I think that takes care of this episode of "Bus Psychosis."

Thank you for all of the inquiries and prayer.

Davy