Maranatha Again at Union College

We set up camp in Lincoln after our little Oregon Trail exploration. We had a few days in a nice, green campground. Across the street from the campground is a walking/biking trail that runs quite a ways through a very pretty park. We were getting discouraged finding birds… we’d hear what seemed like hundreds of birds… hiding in trees. I finally said “I’m going to stay here and sweep this tree with my binoculars till I find the little brats!” (Or something to that effect) Cherryl went on “home” and I started my systematic sweep, starting at the top left of the tree, scanning for little warblers. On about my third pass, I almost jumped! Not a tiny bird, but a huge Owl staring at me! We’d looked at the tree for a while, with binoculars, and not seen this big guy! After gazing at him for a while, I walked back to get Cherryl, and we rode our bikes back to the owl tree. He had nicely waited so Cherryl could see him!

It’s amazing how well the Great Horned Owl blends in with his environment!

Next was moving to the campus of Union College, in Lincoln, Nebraska. Once again, we’d volunteered to help Maranatha Volunteers International remodel some of the girls’ dorm. The program originally scheduled for last year was postponed due to COVID (wasn’t everything?) Two years ago we spent three weeks with them, on a similar project. That time we built all the cabinets from scratch; this time, they were pre-made, so our project was to be two weeks long.

First, a few pictures of Union College campus…

You always meet fun people at a Maranatha project, and this was no exception! Ken and Karlene visited with us in the motorhome.

A real surprise was to see a man named Lincoln… we had known him in Southern California when we were first married, and haven’t seen him for over 40 years! Awesome to see him again, and spend time working with him! Also in the picture below is Rebecca – she is from Peru, and it was fun talking with her about that wonderful country, and the story of my Grandparents’ mission work there 100+ years ago. (See that story here)

We worked long days in the dorm rooms. I didn’t get pictures of the rooms before renovation, because a couple of days before the Maranatha team was scheduled to start, the leader pulled all the old cabinets out and broke a lot of them up. So we started by throwing all the debris out a window and into the dumpster!

It wasn’t all work, however… the college got a bunch of tickets to a baseball game… and we joined them. The Houston Apollos vs the Lincoln Saltdogs. Attendance was slim, but it was fun. 90 some degrees, but with a breeze in the shade it was pretty nice. We left mid-game, to get kiddos to sleep, but Lincoln ended up winning 4-2.

Our beautiful family:

Rachel was enjoying the game!

The Saltdog mascot came by, and had some kids do a silly race inside boxes. One kid tried so hard he fell at the finish line and rolled over on his head. Isn’t baseball fun?