New Beginnings

Our journey, which has at times felt like a wonderful endless vacation, will finally end in about 2 weeks.  However, not only was the trip a great adventure, but it changed the rest of our lives.  Through a very highly improbable series of circumstances God led us to the Show Me State to show me (Bob) His plans for our lives.  Before I list a few of these circumstances I’ll give a brief preface on our future plans.  We accepted we needed to move because of all the maintenance work and expense of our current home and our reduced retirement income.  And we wanted to do some type of volunteer work but didn’t know what.  The short version is that God showed us our new home at Maranatha Village in Springfield, Missouri.  There is a beautiful pond on the 100 acre property and this is an excellent retirement home location for a long list of reasons.  And He revealed excellent volunteer work through the Assembly of God U.S. MAPS RV Volunteer Ministry.  Both of these options we didn’t know about before our trip.  Now for a list of some of these unlikely circumstances:  Because the Alaska Highway was closed by landslides a couple next to us at the Mile 0 Campground in Dawson Creek BC had camped there longer; this couple gave us their phone number and asked us to call them when we reached Soldotna and they would show us a place to camp.  When they showed us a camping area near Soldotna we “happened” to chose a spot to park next to Dan and Alanna Clark, who are U.S. MAPS RV Volunteers.  This was their first trip to Alaska and they had learned about this place to camp on their travels.  This couple is very friendly, helped Bob catch salmon, and remained in touch with us throughout our trip by texting, since voice service in Alaska and Canada wasn’t included with both our cell phone plans.  They told us about the annual MAPS RV Convention which just “happened” to be on our way home at the time we were expecting to be in the area of Carlinville, Illinois.  Also, the only time our Verizon phone worked (to call out) in Alaska was when we called the U.S. MAPS office in Springfield, Missouri to make reservations for the convention.  At the convention we heard about Maranatha Village in Springfield, Missouri and decided to visit there.  Dan and Alanna invited us to camp with them in Branson, Missouri at a private membership campground near their home, which is 2 ½ hours from Maranatha Village.  There they introduced us to some of their friends and family. 

Since the last blog we’ve visited: Devils Tower in Wyoming, the Black Hills of South Dakota including Mount Rushmore, Custer State Park, Wind Cave, and Jewel Cave; the Badlands National Park; Lincoln’s Home National Historic Site.  Also Maranatha Village, the Assemblies of God National Headquarters and other places in and near Springfield, Missouri.  Also, we visited Branson, Table Rock Lake, Big Spring in Ozark Scenic Rivers National Park, and Land Between the Lakes in Kentucky.  Following are a few pictures from our travels:   

Mount Rushmore night illumination.

Badlands National Park

Sunset at Badlands National Park.

A. Lincoln's home in Springfield, Illinois.