Saying Goodbye & Traveling to Toledo
~ TFC Staff Conference at Muskegon, Michigan ~
Thursday, October 5
Larry shared a few inspirational thoughts while we ate breakfast.
I told these two to look up – and this is what I got. 
Tom looks like a deer in headlights. Maybe in his case it is an elk, as he serves on the chapel in North Bend (Seattle), Washington, and on days off helps with tracking elk.
Dan is from East St. Louis and just gave me a kind of look that said, “Okay if you must.”
Rosa, our favorite employee in Maranatha’s dining room, shared her testimony and sang two songs with her husband’s accompaniment.
She has been at Maranatha since TFC began holding Staff Conferences there. It is been encouraging to watch Rosa growing in the Lord. She is a great example of what God can do in setting a drug addict free.
Dorinda and Howard (Indianapolis chapel) need photos for new TFC ID tags, and asked me to take their pictures.
Cerwin saying goodbye to Canadian friends Chaplain Sam and Janet McIntosh (Sherwood Park, Alberta) and Chaplain Paul Leger (Salisbury, New Brunswick)
Dennis (Canadian Director) does a last minute computer check before leaving for the airport. Cindy and Chaplain Jim (West Virginia) visit with Mike (Director of Business and Finance) before heading home.
Chaplain Tom on Maranatha’s computer.
Chaplains Dan (East St. Louis) and David (Elkton, Maryland) enter the building after taking suitcases to their cars.
What is this trucker hauling?
After getting on the road, I began thinking of my responsibility next weekend when we take a promotional chapel to a Missions Conference in Connecticut.
I will be speaking to three different age groups of children when their teachers bring them to the chapel. For part of my PowerPoint presentation I want to tell them about things that truckers deliver – which is almost everything we use. I want to have some easy loads, as well as difficult loads for them to guess.
This load appears to be onions.
We arrived at the Toledo, Ohio, chapel in the early afternoon. Chaplain Wayne (right) asked Cerwin to help move the chapel. It had to be moved forward about thirty feet to make room for an underground tank to store urea (a fuel additive for the reduction of emissions).
While they worked on the details for moving the chapel, I noticed this truck pull into the fuel island, and thought it would be a fun picture to use with the children.
I even asked the driver if I could photograph his hands as he filled a fuel tank.
I wonder what he is hauling? I did not find out.
I love creative people!
This mailbox is “planted” in one of the large flower pots outside the chapel, and holds a nice variety of TFC literature, as well as Our Daily Bread devotionals.
In recent years truck stop owners and managers have been working hard at keeping neat plazas, which now means nobody can place literature in racks or anywhere inside the truck stop. We certainly understand, and asked our chaplains to think outside the box and be creative in distributing New Testaments and TFC’s monthly publications Highway News and Good News.
Among the things that had to be done before moving the chapel: the tires had to be filled with air, the brake lining broken loose from the drums, and though the engine does not run, they had to air up the tanks for the air brakes. They removed the emergency steps on the back side of the chapel, and also the steps and railing from the deck at the main entrance.
A forklift was used to move the large pots of petunias. When that job was finished, they used the same vehicle to move the deck along with the chapel as it went forward.
They used a truck stop tractor to pull the rig.
The manager gave directions as the other employee slowly, carefully pulled the chapel forward.
The entire operation went without a problem. Before long Cerwin helped chaplains Jim and Wayne reassemble the emergency steps.
After putting everything back together, we spent a bit of time visiting with Wayne, then moved on toward our motel on the east side of Toledo.
It didn’t take me long to find another truck that I thought the children would enjoy – and guess what might be inside.
Could it be Keebler cookies?
Now that is an interesting load. Who knows what that is?
Cerwin said it is steel trusses for a building.
Triples are something we don’t see in Pennsylvania.
When we got to our motel, I noticed this bright yellow day cab. I also want to show the children the difference between a day cab (without a sleeper), a regular sleeper, and some unusually long sleepers.