The Tent Is Up and Ready In Bristol, Virginia

The tent is up in Bristol, Virginia and I am glad it is! We had a super revival here last year and we are expecting more of the same this week. It is great to join with Pastor David Horton and his wife Sis. Brenda, Bro. Michael and Sis. Tonya Switzer and all of the folks from Grace Pentecostal Holiness Tabernacle in an effort to reach people in Bristol with the message of the Gospel. I have a feeling God is going to help folks this week.

The tent set up went great. It was only 69 degrees when Kelly Jo and I went to the tent site at 7:00 Monday morning. Once we determine the best location for the tent it only takes us a few minutes to lay out the pattern for the stake line. We have made a few minor changes through the years but we mostly follow the original instructions.

It was still foggy and cool when the men started driving stakes at 8:00. The stakes went in the ground in 10-15 minutes and the rest of the setup went perfectly. Even though the sun quickly burned off the fog it was a great morning to put up the tent.

Bro. Switzer pulled the tent trailer into place with his Ford truck.

Then we were ready to unload the tent pieces and lace them together.

Next comes the poles and staps.

Then the side poles are stood up.

Then the center pole goes up.

This is the hard working crew in Bristol, Virginia.

Last year we set up the tent on the church grounds. This year Pastor Horton wanted to set up in a beautiful park just down the road but could not get permission to set up the front of the park next to the road. They secured a great location just across Hwy 11 from the church. We can see the tent from the parking lot of the church where we are parked in the BoggsMobile.

This is zoomed in a bit.

We begin services tonight at 7:30 and plan to run through Sunday night. If you are any where in the area we would love to have you come be with us.

Davy

Batteries And Tents

There are tent pictures below if bus stuff bores you. Believe it or not I have some people tune in everyday to find out what is going on with the bus. You never know what will interest folks. 

Another Episode of Bus Induced Psychosis 

(Thanks to my brother Steve, I finally have a diagnosis)

If you remember I mentioned that my batteries were getting weak on the bus. Not the house batteries but the chassis or starting batteries. I had a 24 volt charger mounted over the batteries and it would have been easy to nurse these batteries a few more weeks or even months until it was a better time to change them. That is what I planned to do because it is too busy during tent revival to mess with a project that big.

But then my 20 year old charger quit working.

That complicates things. I could have ordered another identical charger and mounted it where the one is above. However that charger is really in the way. I need to get behind it pretty regularly to access some important areas. I had been planning to buy a 24 volt charger that wires in directly but since the batteries need to be removed to do that I was waiting until it was time to replace batteries.

I never dreamed the charger would go bad at the same time. With questionable batteries and no way to charge them I had to do something whether I had time and energy or not.

I waded into it early Tuesday morning. Once I had everything disassembled I took all the batteries to NAPA in London to have them checked. Two of them were bad, one was OK and one was good. I think I mentioned earlier that these batteries were "seconds" and they were given to me. I am thankful to get 2 years and 9 months to the day out of free batteries. 

Needless to say the batteries I put in this week were not free. They are new and I "should" get about 5 years out of them.

I cleaned everything up while I had them out.



I replaced a few of the leads and then I had to do quite a bit of finagling to wire the charger. After all that was completed I put in the tray and then the batteries.



I hooked them all up, checked everything about 4 times, had Kelly Jo double check me twice and breathed a sigh of relief when the bus cranked to life. 

You can see in the picture below how much room I have with the charger gone.



The new charger is smaller, smarter and is wired directly to the 24 volt charging posts. All I have to do is plug it up and it goes to charging. Theoretically I should be able to turn it on and walk off and leave it to charge and it will not over charge the batteries because it is smart. I do not trust machines that are smarter than me so I will probably keep a close eye on it.

First, I replaced the tent trailer batteries and now the starting batteries in the BoggsMobile. Hopefully I am finished with batteries for a while.

London Tent Revival

Here are a few pictures from Friday night and a very few as the tent came down.

It was too dark for good pictures when we were taking down the tent so we only have a few. I appreciate the folks working so hard. It all went very smooth.

Here are a few picture from Sis. Waveline Carpenters phone as we were taking down the tent and packing things away.

Bristol, Virginia

We enjoyed a quiet Sunday morning in the BoggsMobile. I did not even step outside until I went out to roll in the cords and water hose. Kelly Jo prepared a great lunch and I enjoyed every morsel of it.  I am sorry there are no pictures of the food. I was eating with both hands and forgot.

We arrived in Bristol in time for me to slip in to Grace Pentecostal Holiness Tabernacle and hear Bro. Switzer preach. He preached outstanding and fired us up for tent revival.

After church Pastor Horton showed me where the tent is going up. It is just across Hwy 11 not far from the church. We dropped the trailer there and then parked the BoggsMobile at the church around 10:30.

By God's grace the tent will go up beginning at 8:00 this morning and revival will begin Tuesday. Say a prayer for us.

Davy