A Great Weekend Ahead

Caution! There is a great weekend ahead!

We are leaving in a few minutes for the airport. We are excited to be on our way to Sweeny, Texas this weekend for a singing, shouting, preaching and praying good time. 

It is going to be great to be with Pastor Larry Lamb and all of his folks.

I will add some travel pictures to this post along the way if it is possible. Please ask the Lord to guide and protect us.

5:45 AM

On the way to Atlanta

Atlanta Airport 

Thanks for reading.

Davy

House Update - Ceilings

The font is doing crazy things again today. It was fine before I hit "publish" but did not post correctly. I have fixed it several times but to no avail. I am going to revert to draft and try it again. I hope it works but if not, I am sorry.

Thank you for the nice comments on Tuesday's post. I am very thankful if something I write rings true and it is nice of you to let me know. May God help us all to keep pressing toward the prize AND to never quit!

We are supposed to be gone singing and preaching this weekend so we are putting in some long days trying to have the house caught up to where it needs to be. We have insulation coming Monday so the ceilings need to be in place.

We had sheetrock hangers here yesterday evening doing the flat ceilings. They are about half finished and should complete that in a few hours today or tomorrow, depending on when they can swing by.

Wow! It is starting to look like a house now.

I have been high and lifted up the last few days working on the ceiling. Here is Odie from my vantage point.

We are putting a wood ceiling in the living room/kitchen area and we have put a lot of hours into that the last two weeks. It is very labor intensive and a few of the days have been extremely hot and humid in the house.

My parents have been working very, very hard to help us. I thought they were going to melt down yesterday. Kelly Jo has been working hard as always. I need to send KJ and my parents on a long vacation when this is over. I think I heard them all say "Amen!"

Also, Pastor Wade Hicks and Bro. Don Bragg put in a long day on the ceiling Tuesday. I appreciate all of this good help from family and friends. The work this week is time critical and I could not have done it without them. 

Others have jumped in to help with the ceiling or to help clean up, including my niece Deidre and my cousin Lisa. Thank you both very much.

I will post more pictures of the ceiling process at a later time.We are leaving at dark thirty tomorrow and we have many more things to do before then. We must be off to work.

Thank you for reading today.

Davy

GMC vs Deer

Friday it was Pretty Red GMC vs Deer. The GMC was badly battered but definitely prevailed.

I mentioned Monday that the trip to Kentucky last Friday contained a bit of excitement. That might be and understatement. It might be more accurate if I add that it was a day of adrenalin, heart pounding, fear and miraculous preservation!

Mom and Dad were on their way to Kentucky with my Uncle Jerry and Aunt Garnetta behind them. Cousin Debbie and her husband Sonny were right behind them.

Suddenly a deer jumped over the guardrail into an oncoming car. A woman was driving that car with several children with her and she could not avoid the leaping deer. She hit the deer with the front of her car just as it was landing and the deer was thrown violently into Dad's shiny red truck.

You can not see the extent of the dent in the front door but it hit right at the handle very hard and the momentum carried down the side of the truck.

Every one involved said it looked like the deer exploded on impact and deer parts and red truck parts went flying through the air.

Can you believe the extent of the damage?

There are things that cause us to be thankful.

All the cars involved and following were able to get stopped and pulled off the busy highway without further problems.

The original car that could not avoid the deer was heavily damaged but still drive-able . No one in that car was injured.

Mom and Dad were not injured and they were also able to drive away.

Our family traveling in the two cars behind them were not hit with debris at all as far as they could tell. That is amazing.

Also if Mom and Dad had been driving their car, the initial deer impact would have been at the driver's side window. That could have been catastrophic.

It was a traumatic day and it will take a while to get the truck fixed but we thank God they are alive and well.

It could have been much worse!

Thank you for dropping in to visit today.

Davy

Spelunking and Perseverance

Sunday night I was going through our posts from the Boggs reunion and Carter Caves from years gone by. I linked to some of those posts yesterday. I was reminded of an experience there that has stayed with me for 36 years. I have written about it before but maybe it is worth repeating.

In July, 1981 our family camped at Carter Caves in a pop up camper for nearly two weeks. I was 14 years old and had just finished 8th grade. I ran all over the park, roaming the trails, touring caves, swimming and having myself a time. One of the reasons I remember the year is that we watched Prince Charles and Princess Di get married on a small  black and white TV sitting on a table outside our little camper. They were married July 29, 1981.

I remember Carter Caves about as far back as I remember anything from childhood but it was that trip that made it a part of my heart. I fell in love with Carter Caves that July. I hiked every step of every one of the main park trails and went into all the caves I could find. 

I re-learned an important lesson about perseverance that week too. I signed up for a spelunking tour through one of the caves. The spelunking tours go off the path of the regular commercial lighted tours. You crawl on your belly through the mud and water and squeeze through tight passages exploring nooks and crannies with nothing but a flashlight. I mean with a name like "spelunking" it has got to be fun!

The description sounded awesome to me even though I had a pretty good touch of claustrophobia. How bad could it be, right? 

Well it turns out it could be pretty bad. I bought my ticket and showed up at the cave entrance with everyone else. I had my long pants, long sleeves, solid shoes, flashlight and I was ready to go. By the time the cave guide finished reading all the fine print about the impossibly narrow passages we would be slithering through I was completely convinced I would suffocate in a deep passage some where even IF the whole thing did not collapse and bury us all.

As the group filed into the cave, I slinked into the woods and followed the trail up the hill to the camp ground. Dad and Mom were surprised to see me back so early. I told them how dangerous the spelunking tour was but I could see right away that Dad was not convinced.

My Dad was not going to be a part of raising a bunch of quitters and I already knew that. "Once you start something you can't quit. Quitters never win and winners never quit." 

I pretty much believed it at that time but this was different. I was making a prudent decision based on accurate information given to me by a cave guide probably under 20 years old that was trying to scare everyone to death during this tour. I was saving my life by backing out.

Nope! According to Dad I was quitting and quitting was unacceptable. Plus I had wasted the $1.75 I had spent on the non-refundable spelunking cave tour ticket.

Dad never once said that I had to pay for another ticket and follow through or forever be labeled a quitter. He did drive the lesson home pretty good. I do not even think he suggested that I had to do it. But I knew when I was walking up that hill before I ever told my Dad about it that I would never be satisfied with myself until I spelunked through that cave.

The next time the tour was offered that week I slipped away and bought another $1.75 ticket, gathered at the cave entrance and listened to the impassioned speech about all the dangers that lie ahead. I ignored my cowardly heart beating visibly through my shirt and refused to allow my feet to turn and run. When they opened the gate and started inside I turned on my flashlight and marched with the others toward certain and disastrously painful death.

36 years later I do not remember much about the actual tour. I am pretty sure I was scared in some of those passages, I know I prayed the whole time but I am also sure I had a great time. 

I do remember how I felt when I walked out of that cave alive into the sunshine. I felt like I could do anything because I was not a quitter. I remember how I felt when I walked into camp covered in mud from head to toe. I felt like a world champion. I pretty much was a champion because I was not a quitter.

I am not convinced that I can do much on my own any more. I have tried and failed way too many times to put much confidence in myself. But I am VERY convinced in the power of determination when combined with trust in God. 

The power of the human spirit is amazing sometimes. Men have completed some huge feats, almost unbelievable tasks because they refused to give up. You combine that determination and no quit attitude with complete trust and faith in God then there is no telling what God can do in our lives. I Know that to be true.

The spelunking tour reinforced that in the heart of this 14 year old boy. I have bought the ticket and went home defeated more times than I care to remember but by God's grace I have raised up to go again. I did not quit.

Not quitting does not mean Not failing. A thousand times no! Not quitting means Not quitting. We may fall and stumble and make a complete mess but we are Not quitting. We are not going to stay down but we are going to get back up again by God's grace and help! Our mind is made up and we will not wallow in defeat and die in despair.

Micah 7:8 Rejoice not against me, O mine enemy: when I fall, I shall arise; when I sit in darkness, the LORD shall be a light unto me.

Amen!

Oh, by the way. The three hour spelunking tour that was $1.75 in 1981.... Is way over $30 now! OUCH!

Have a great day and do not quit!

Davy

Boggs Reunion - Weekend Woundup and Weview #28

This weekend was the weekend for the annual Boggs Reunion normally held at Carter Caves State Park near Olive Hill, Kentucky. The trip down had quite a bit of excitement but I will tell you more about that later in the week when I have more pictures available.

The last time we attended the Boggs reunion was 2014. You can see pictures from our last visit to the reunion HERE, HERE , HERE and HERE. It is amazing to us comparing the pictures from only three years ago to the pictures below.

We knew in 2014 that it would be a while before we made it back to reunion. We had vacation planned with my parents, Kelly Jo's parents and Steve and Karen in 2015 and City Reach in 2016. It sure does seem like we have been gone forever though!

Other years we have taken our fifth wheel or the bus and stayed a few days at the campground leading up to the reunion. That gives us a chance to visit more with family from that area, enjoy the state park and relax. We really enjoy that and maybe we can do it next year. 

We were rushed this year because of other commitments so we drove down Friday and stayed in the lodge. My brother Tommy reserved four rooms, just in case, so that made it possible for us to make last minute plans. We have had the BoggsMobile up the hill to the campground three different years but this year would have been a challenge with many low thee branches.

Usually we sing in the campground with a bunch of the family and we had planned to do that this year but bad storms blew through Friday evening and canceled that for us. Speaking of storms, the electric went out as a result and made Friday night a little less than enjoyable at the lodge.

The electric went off at 8:30 PM Friday and came back on some time in the mid-late afternoon Saturday while we were at the reunion. We slept with the balcony door open and that helped with the heat some. After the wind was gone and the rain stopped everything was quiet, still AND sticky! 

Sleeping with the balcony door open might not have been a very bright idea anyway. Another family staying there had the same idea but with worse results. While they were sleeping, a raccoon came through the screen door and ransacked their room!

Some things might be worse than being hot and sticky!

The park went out of their way to make up for having no electricity Friday night. The manager drove to Ashland, Kentucky and came back very early Saturday morning with a vast amount of breakfast foods, juice, milk and several gallons of hot coffee from McDonald's. They also discounted the rooms to a very reasonable rate for both night we were there. That was a very nice touch.

Even though we did not get to play music and sing with our family as we usually do, we had a great time visiting with them all. Hopefully we will get to go back in the near future.

Here are a few pictures from Friday evening a the campground before the rain came in.

Saturday was a hot day but the picnic shelter they rent every year is near a cave and it was much cooler there. It was very comfortable for the second Sunday in July!

Here are some more reunion pictures courtesy of our cousin Michelle.

Thanks for stopping in today.

Davy