Serve Across AmericaTim and Dixie Reed – Thank you Tour

It’s Day 9 on our adventure and we are heading to our eighth state, Missouri.  Our first week of traveling across the country has been alive with experiences at missions serving up to 500 people and at missions with a small group of ten.  We’ll tell you more later, but want to share our first experience of “getting lost.”

We have had a great experience with our Garmin GPS system which we have named “Carmen.”  However, we came to the wrong address in Nebraska , so had to call the mission switchboard to get the correct address.  “Carmen” would not allow us to add East on to the end of the address so she kept bringing us to the wrong place.  We were getting concerned because of the time, so called the switchboard back who unfortunately was quite busy and had to keep taking calls.   Meanwhile Carmen had fallen off the bracket and was laying on the floor saying  repeatedly “re-calculating, re-calculating, re-calculating”,  Tim discovered a sign saying we were now in Iowa, which further confused us, and we didn’t want to stop and pull over in that section of town.   In the midst of all this racket,  a phone call came in – it was Jan, one of Tim’s former ACU students who was now living in Omaha.  After telling her our situation, she happened to know our location and proceeded to calmly direct us right to the mission.  Relieved, we arranged to meet later, and went in for our job that evening of cutting vegetables and washing pots and pans in the mission kitchen for the meal.

Later, with Jan and Neil, we found out the “rest of the story.”  When Tim and I told her how unbelievably opportune her phone call was, she said, “Wait until I tell you what was actually happening on our side of the line.”  Evidently they were driving down the road and she noticed the truck behind her swerving and trying to hit a bicycle.  All of a sudden, the truck made contact and actually hit the bicyclist, so Jan and Neil stopped their vehicle, called the police, and Neil went back to check out the situation.  He ended up having to break up a fight between the truck driver and the bicyclist, while Jan waited in the car with the baby.   It was during all of this that Jan felt like she was to call us.  We were stunned!  It seemed like the most inconvenient time to call your former professor!

After we met with them, we were talking about the “phone call” and related it to a lesson….when God calls us to do something or brings someone to our mind, we should do something about it.  Don’t put it off.  That person might need us at just that moment.   Give them a call,  write an email, pray for them…realize God is speaking to you no matter the “inconvenience” of the moment!  God’s timing is always perfect!

STORIES THAT INSPIRE:

The man who is recovering from a tough year:  His brother died,  his mother who was ill with cancer took a turn for the worse, causing his sister to have a heart attack and die.  Then his mother died a month later.  He lost three loved ones in the period of one year.   He turned to alcohol for comfort and later found himself looking for help which he found at the mission.  He said, “If it weren’t for the Gospel Rescue Mission, I don’t know where I’d be right now.”   He is currently helping others and inspiring hope in changed lives around him.

T RIP QUIPS:

QUOTE OF THE DAY  “Could you help wash a few pots and pans?”  (two hours later, as we finished washing multitudes of pots and pans, we were especially appreciative of those who do this day in and day out)

BEAUTIFUL SCENE:  Sunset on the Mississippi River

WHAT TIM DOES WANT TO HEAR   “Have you tasted my world famous mashed potatoes?”  coming from yet another mission chef with more great mashed potatoes for Tim, who is enjoying this aspect.

WHAT TIM DOESN’T WANT TO HEAR   “Honey, could we stop for a picture?”  spoken by Dixie every few minutes or so it seems to Tim

Thanks again for taking this journey with us. 

So…Catch the vision

Feel our heart

Join the movement…

As we SERVE ACROSS AMERICA!!!