Toccoa Falls College... our First SOWER's Project

Most everyone who know Ruth and I know we are Followers of Jesus. In some circles we use the term Christians but truly we are Followers of Jesus. One of our major concerns when deciding to full time was fulfilling our desire to attend church and living up to our spiritual commitment of serving. In a community you typically connect with a single church and in that church you find your niche in serving others, it could be prayer ministry, mission work [local, interstate or international], even service to the church itself. As a fulltime RV'er you no longer have that connection as you are moving around.

In researching and preparing for our life change we discovered a group called SOWERS, a Christian RV ministry who serve other non-profit Christian organizations, the work is mainly construction related work, building, restoration, remodeling or a combination of some of each. SOWER's projects are 3 weeks, you travel to the project, they provide an RV site, and you provide service to them in exchange for the site.

On November 1st 2013 we left Yogi in the Smokies after three exhausting months. The drive from Cherokee NC to Toccoa GA was not long, only about two hours and we arrived at Toccoa Falls College. After finding the RV lot we met the other three couples we would be working with and began setting up and settling in. The college, a private Christian college is a beautiful, small campus.

The campus is built at the base of Toccoa Falls and they have approximately 800 students who are from all around the world. They also serve Christian missionaries who visit the campus fro retreats and sabbaticals where they can have some much needed down time from the mission field.

The Project

We began work the following Monday, each week you commit to work a total of 24 hours, 6 hours a day, 4 days a week [Monday thru Thursday] Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays are free time. Each workday begins with a Daily Devotional, each SOWER couple takes turns in starting the workday with a thought, scripture and perhaps a discussion on something that is meaningful and to give Thanks to our Lord. After devotion time the workday begins. With SOWER projects the men typically do some type of construction related work while the women, if they so choose will do some other work. On this project the men were to tear off an old flat rubber roof that had water damage and replace it with a pitched metal roof. The women kept busy with cleaning, painting, sorting and a variety of other work.

Those of you who know me, you know my construction skills are pretty minimal, my life work was mostly professional, office type work so this was brand new to me!!! Luckily the other men in the group knew how to do this work and were more than patient in helping guide me along. I found the work rewarding and eventually learned some new skills which I'm sure I'll use again in future work projects.

In our spare time, our days off, we traveled to Athens to spend time with Erin, Kevin and Eli, always a treat. We even arranged for a work afternoon off to spend time at Eli's school for Grandparents Day!! We also got to spend an afternoon with dear friends; Steve & Nancy and Jim & Peggy whom we hadn't seen in quite some time, a lunch with them is always fun.

When we were in Cherokee we took a trip to Pigeon Forge to go to the Dixie Stampede, while we were there I promised Ruth I'd take her back to go to Dollywood so we went back up for our anniversary. It was a beautiful time, the park was all decorated for Christmas, we really enjoyed the weekend.
We got to spend some time in our old home town Dahlonega where Gary & Christy Greenwald graciously hosted us for a Saturday evening so we could  attend church at our home church, Dahlonega UMC and visit with our church friends!!

These three weeks, although physically challenging, were a pure joy and the time went way too quickly. The folks at the college were so wonderful and they closed out our time with a wonderful luncheon where we all ate too much!! Goodbyes were exchanged with the college staff and then amongst the SOWER couples and we were off...

Thanksgiving 2013

When we left Toccoa Falls we traveled a short distance to Fort Yargo State Park in Winder GA. We chose this park because of its proximity to family and friends, located about halfway between Atlanta and Athens it served well to spending time with family and friends. It was very cold in north Georgia while we were here, the night temperatures were in the teens and twenties, daily highs were in the forties and fifties so we didn't spend a whole bunch of time exploring, when we weren't visiting we stayed snuggled in the coach!!!

 We did get to visit the kids, we spent lots of time with Eli thus giving Erin & Kevin a break and spent Thanksgiving with the Hanrahan's, Joe & Lisa and the Burchik's, Mike & Nancy. We have been spending Thanksgiving with them for many years so we were glad to be able to continue the tradition again this year. Dinner at the Hanrahan's is always a treat, they both love to cook and we both love to eat...a perfect match!!! Dinner is always finished off with more deserts than should be allowed and of course I have to sample all of them!!!

We finish off the week with a trip to see Santa with Eli...this year he actually wanted to sit with Santa, up until now he would freak out and not go sit with him...guess he's figured out there's booty involved with this ritual!!!

We got our fill of cold weather, North Carolina started getting chilly the last couple of weeks of October, it was chilly while in Toccoa Falls and downright cold while at Ft Yargo so we weren't sad to leave the cold... not so with family and friends!!!

Reluctantly we say our goodbyes to all, got our propane tanks refilled [boy did we go through lots of gas heating the coach during the cold weather] and pack up our stuff for our journey to the sunshine of Sarasota Florida. We both really looked forward to warm weather, beaches and Florida family and friends!!

Next up... Sarasota Florida, warm and sunny weather!!