Nov 22, 2017
by Steven Moncrief
SDB Church of Shiloh, NJ
It was the week of October 9th and I knew that something was up. I had been sitting in my normal spot where I wait for long periods of time for someone to take me for a drive. Over the past several years I have been a part of the Shiloh SDB Church family. I have been used for several youth outings; have been to one Conference; made several trips to Lancaster, PA; and even taken youth to Snow Camp in New York. That was a cold trip! But this summer has been even more active for me. I have taken groups of adults to Lancaster on day trips and to Allentown, PA, for a ride on a mule-drawn barge. I even took the youth to Johnson City, TN, on a missions trip this summer. I am proud to be a part of this church. They take good care of me and I try my best to take good care of them.
Back to the week of the 9th. Someone started cleaning me up inside and out — cleaning my windows, washing and waxing me, and checking me all over. I knew something was up. Sure enough the following Monday, October 16, I came to life again at 7:00 in the morning. Away we went to the church and there to meet me was a group of 15 adults. This time when they came aboard they brought lots of luggage. Wow! I thought we must be in for quite a trip. And yes, I was in for a busy week.
We left Shiloh and traveled to Pigeon Forge, TN, arriving on Tuesday. There we visited the Bush Baked Bean Factory Museum and Restaurant. That evening we went to the Dixie Stampede Dinner Show. On Wednesday we went to Dollywood. In the park were several gospel groups singing throughout the day and we saw many different crafters. Thursday, we went to the Old Mill for breakfast: this is a beautiful old building with great food. Then we traveled over the mountains to Granite Falls, NC, to see Florence Dickinson. She is a 90-year-old member of the Shiloh Church that now lives with her daughter, Fay. After spending a couple hours visiting with her we headed for home.
We arrived home on Friday about 4:30 pm. I could hear the group saying what a good time they had and talking about the great food. I even heard them say that two of the ladies went zip lining. (Hey, will someone call Dolly and have her beef up the Zipline so I can get in on that? I can’t fit into the church building but next time we have a service outside, Cathy, Miriam, and I can have special music together and sing “Zip-a-dee-doo-dah.”) I have to take their word for the food because my diet consists of only Diesel fuel, but it all sounded good to me. If I ate what they had it would have been “Heart Attack City” for me.
The Lord took good care of us during our 1398-mile 5-day trip. He provided perfect weather each day. Everyone was talking about Monday when we had a tire blow out near Harpers Ferry. The Lord provided the help that we needed when the jack wouldn’t lift me up. A tractor-trailer had a flat tire just across the street from us and the man that was repairing his tire helped us. He even was going back to his place of business about 30 miles away and we followed him so we could get a new tire. It was only about 3 blocks out of our way. And yes, even a Bus knows that God is good all the time!
But my week didn’t stop here. When I arrived home to the Church with my group of adults, I found a group of youth waiting to hop on board and head to New York for a youth retreat. I didn’t even get time to rest — my engine kept running, they switched drivers, and off I went for another 653 miles of serving the Lord. Eight states in one week. I saw the people reading the words “Seventh Day Baptist” on my sides as we drove along. How much more fun could a church bus have in one week? I hope we can do it again. And yes, Mr. President, even though the people I was carrying were doing a lot of Talking, I purred like a kitten and was all Action!
