Roadtrips Aren't For Sissies

What a difference a week makes! When I spoke to Trish a week ago, she and Allen were in a parking lot outside a Christian school in Virginia. This week, they are on the west coast of Florida visiting Kirstin, Christopher (Gus), Bethany (Boo), and Trish’s parents. In the space between one phone call and the next, there was a lot of lugging boxes of backpacks from one place to another, a lot of driving, and a lot of driving rain (courtesy of Hurricane Michael).

Eating out with Oscar and Rhoda, in Virginia

When Allen and Trish left the aforementioned school parking lot, they drove to St. Luke’s Methodist Church in Yorktown, Virginia to collect backpacks. They loaded those boxes of backpacks into the 16-ft Penske truck they were driving at the time. Then they headed to South Carolina, where they spent the night. The following morning, the weather was a might blustery and hurricane-ish in South Carolina, but the track of the hurricane was looking good. It was east of them and headed northeast. Allen and Trish were heading southwest to Atlanta. So, after admiring the water that was gushing through the canned lighting in the hotel lobby, Allen and Trish took inventory of the situation and decided to go ahead and hit the road. After all, they were going in the right direction to get out of the storm.

Driving south, along with many relief vehicles,
and catching a bit of Tropical Storm Michael

They drove slowly and carefully, but said everything was okay. All roads were passable and it didn’t seem ridiculously dangerous. After driving for three hours, they stopped for gas. That’s when Trish pulled out her phone and received a warning message she had missed before they left the hotel. The warning, which had been sent three hours prior, said that for the next three hours there would be flash flood warnings in the area they had just driven! This is probably one of those “ignorance is bliss” situations. With a full tank of gas, they hit the road again and drove out of the storm.

After a stop to pick up a violin on the northside of Atlanta, which has been donated for Ben's use, they drove to a Home Depot near downtown Atlanta. That’s where they traded the 16-foot truck for a 26-foot truck. Now, ordinarily, there would have been volunteers there to help them move the boxes of backpacks from one truck to the other. But, Allen and Trish had moved this trip forward on the schedule, and with the storm, there hadn’t been a real way of knowing when they would need help. In the end, Allen and Trish schlepped the boxes all on their own. It took about four hours and wasn’t exactly the optimal activity for a man with a bad back to undertake. But they did it and they’d do it again! Why? By switching trucks rather than starting off in the big truck from Maryland, they saved the ministry more than $800!

From there, they went to Kim and Jonathan Hall’s house to pick up 100 more boxes from Manna4Lempira sponsors. They spent the night at the Halls' house and, the following morning, they headed to a church nearby. The church supplied boxes of backpacks, as well as bags of used clothing. Since the pastor and his wife are Honduran, they understand how important warm jackets and clothing will be to the recipients.

Then, it was on to St Marys/Kingsland Georgia - right near the Florida line. A project run through the First Baptist Church of Kingsland filled around 500 backpacks! With those onboard on Sunday afternoon, Trish and Allen headed south to Jacksonville, Florida to pick up donations from a Manna4Lempira sponsor.

Completely full truck, at the end of the trip
from Maryland to Florida

By that evening, the truck was parked in a Walmart parking lot in Edgewater, Florida. The next morning, the truck’s contents were unloaded into the storage facility near Edgewater, and the rental truck (the 5th truck rented so far on this trip) was returned.

Fuzzy photo of the volunteers who helped with the
unloading in Florida

They are enjoying a little time with their grown children who live in Florida before beginning the next phase of the trip. But, of course, it’s not all downtime. Sowers4Pastors is currently storing some food in Edgewater for future use in feeding centers. Since that food is not needed for immediate use in Honduras, Allen is currently trying to find out if anyone working on Hurricane Michael relief could use the food right now. As Allen said, they “can’t donate it unless someone has a plan to use it!”

 - posted by Christi