More Pictures!

Thanks to Tracy Starkey, I have more photos to share with you! 


Tracy was with the group who went to the Mammoth Cave National Park. So here are a few pics from their adventures.  

And if you'd like to see more, you can take a peek at my Flikr photostream. 

More Day 1 Photos of Flikr

AND, here are more pics from yesterday on my Flikr photostream.

Honking for Jesus

This is what the back of the van I was riding in looks like, thanks to the teens on the trip!

And lemme tell ya, there was a whole lotta honking going on yesterday! And I'm sure today will be just the same.

Here's what some of the other cars look like: 

More later...time for breakfast and worship! I can't wait to show you guys what this church looks like--it's AMAZING!

WE HAVE ARRIVED!

It's now 11:00p (10:00p your time--YES, we're readjusting to ANOTHER time change, thank you very much stupid daylight savings!) and we have arrived in Nashville. It was a long trip, but we had several interesting adventures along the way that made it all worth it! 

Adventure #1The Beaver County part of the caravan (traveling down the road formerly known as 60!) was running a bit behind schedule. (It was bound to happen, sooner or later, so why not at the beginning, right?!)

We were supposed to meet up with the Butler County part of the group (traveling down interstate 79) at mile marker 50 of Interstate 79 just outside of Bridgeville, PA. We Beaver County folks figured the others would be waiting for us when we got there. 

So, imagine our surprise when, AS WE WERE MERGING onto 79, who should be in the lane we were merging into at the same time?!  The Butler County folks!

It was Providence!  As we got out at the rest stop, the crowd was buzzing about the amazing timing of the groups. (Or maybe it was the sugar buzz from the Krispy Kremes that Hap Burns provided for the group!)

Adventure #2Our next stop proved to be just as eventful. We pulled in for gas (for those vans who needed it) and we spied a woman trying, apparently in vain, to pop the lock on her car door...which she had locked herself out of. 

Well, Don and Joe Schmaltzried and Bob Gilson, sprung into action, having had some previous "B&E" type expertise in this area :0). 

The woman had what looked like part of a store display rack--a long, thin wire win a hook on the end. Her passenger side window was down about an inch or two and she was working on using the hook to catch the lock. Alas, it was to no avail. 

For a few minutes, Joe and Don fiddled around with it but decided they didn't have the right tools. What they NEEDED was a teenage girl with very long, thin arms!  

And lo and behold, God provided Taylor Huff who was able to reach in and unlock the car! In no time, our Good Samaritans were back in the vans and we were on our way--still running late, I don't think anyone complained about this reason!

Adventure #3

For dinner, we stopped at "King Buffet," a Chinese restaurant somewhere in Kentucky. (Sorry, I didn't pay much attention to the town names as we traveled!) We had the place to ourselves, quite literally!

Though I think we overwhelmed the staff, I imagine they were equally grateful for ALL the business we gave them! They were super gracious and quick to refill all the dishes that were quickly emptied. (A "regular" customer of theirs even got up and got the drinks for our table!)

A couple of hours later, we arrived at the church, unloaded our stuff, took a little tour, and then had a little meeting. 

Nice boots. 

And now we're going to bed. 

G'night, from Nashville!

Today's the Day!

Today's the day! As this entry posts, we will be a couple of hours into the trip from PA to TN!!!!  (Automatic scheduling on a blog comes in handy!)


Since some of you may be new the blog, I thought I'd re-post some information from earlier to fill you in on the details of the trip. 


*The trip is organized through the Presbyterian Disaster Assistance program. You can click here to find them on the PC(USA) website.

*We'll be staying at the Westminster Presbyterian Church, which is a PDA head quarters for the Nashville flood relief efforts.

*If you want to see some pictures of where we'll be staying, you can click here.

*If you'd like, you can check out a bit of Nashville's background info.

*Here's an article about the good work of the PDA volunteers at Westminster Church.

*And here's a video to show you what Nashville looked like in May 2010.



Next time you hear from me, it will be from Nashville!