RV Ministry Report April to June 2021
The RV parks and other locations in which we stayed and shared the Gospel during these three months:
April
Taylorsville Lake State Park, Spencer County, KY. I gave away 45 tracts to people from KY, NY, MI, IN, FL, and AL. Kirk, a truck driver from NY, showed us a better way to strap down the car on the trailer. I gave 3 tracts to another camper who was watching us strap it down.
I gave 3 tracts to a hotel’s clerks for letting us park in their lot, while we ate at Culver’s, in Elizabethtown, KY. Gave 4 tracts to family in Culver’s. Gave 2 tracts to RVer from Louisville at gas station.
Dad’s Bluegrass Campground, Franklin, KY. I gave 2 tracts to family next door.
Took Natchez Trace Parkway south at Nashville. We boondocked at Meriwether Lewis Campground there. Gave tract to LDS couple from Boise, ID. Talked to a couple from Spokane, WA. Talked to 73 year old Vietnam vet with Roman Catholic background, gave him a tract and a gospel of John.
We boondocked at Jeff Busby Campground. We are getting 8.16 mpg with the RV, while pulling the trailer, with the scooter & the car on the trailer. Gave a tract to a couple from NY. We watched the scenery get more and more green the further south we drove. We talked to a man from ME, who was struggling with loss of his wife, and in his faith because of unanswered prayers. Gave him a tract so he could see our website later. Also talked with a Quebec (Canada) couple (mostly French speaking). I shared the Gospel with them, a tract, and a Gospel of John. I also showed them how to find the Gospel of John in French online. They seemed to have never heard the Gospel before! Shared a tract with a Gainesville, FL, retired airline pilot. Gave a tract to a couple from Germany. He is a retired insurance executive.
We got off the Natchez Trace Parkway, and drove to Pavilion RV Park in West Monroe, LA. Saw two small alligators in the lake there! Gave two tracts each to two couples. One couple is from Polk, TN, and the other from CT. The couple from CT had just come from a RV park we used in January, LaFleur’s Bluff in Jackson, MS, and had to flee in the middle of the night because of the river next to it flooded! I also talked to and gave tracts to X-ray photographers who take X-rays of oil, water, & natural gas pipelines.
We drove to Laguna Vista RV Park, just south of Marshall, TX. Lane’s father attended and graduated from East Texas Baptist College (now a university) in Marshall when she was a child. We visited the school while we were there, and she recognized several buildings. We tried to find her elementary school and house, but they were gone. At the park, we gave tract to a MS couple.
We drove to Sunset RV Park, Sunset, TX, and spent one night.
We drove to Back Forty RV Park, Quanah, TX, spending one night. Gave a tract to the husband of LDS woman, and he gave us $60 for gas!
We drove to Highland RV Park, Tulia, TX. The next day, we drove in our car to Palo Duro (‘hard wood’ in Spanish) State Park, beautiful cliffs and hoodoos (chimney-shaped rocks). Second largest canyon in USA. We spent the day there. We wanted to go to the RV Museum in Amarillo, TX, about fifty miles away, but they were closed because of moving to a new location.
We drove to Blaze in Saddle RV Park, Tucumcari, NM. I talked to four couples, and gave tracts to three of the couples, and to the manager. Made the painful acquaintance with ‘goat heads,’ large seeds with two large spurs & 3-5 small ones. Ouch!
We drove to Route 66 RV Park, Edgewood, NM, east of Albuquerque. Talked with retired prof of Business Administration & Geology. He has a United Methodist background. Gave him our bcard & tract. He had never heard of the acrostic GRACE: God’s Riches At Christ’s Expense! Surprised me. I’ve known of it since my BSU days in college!
We drove to Kit Carson RV Park, Flagstaff, AZ. Gave two clerks a tract each. Talked to engaged couple in a bus they had converted. I gave them two tracts, and info on Passport America (see below) and state parks to see in various states. He’s from London, England, and she’s from Bulgaria. I also talked to older man here to visit his son in area. Gave tract to NY lady, camping by herself. We went to Walnut Canyon National Monument, and were amazed to learn about the Native Americans who built cliff dwellings there. They lived here 1100 to 1300 AD, and raised their babies and children on these cliffs! Sheer drops to the canyon floors! Amazing. Drove to the Grand Canyon National Park, stayed only a few hours there, since Visitors Center still closed.
We’ve had to adjust driving hours several times due to the windy conditions on several freeways, sometimes with gusts up to 45 mph during the day. The Plains are well famed for being windy areas.
We drove to Three Dreamers RV Park near Salome, AZ, west of Phoenix. I gave the lady clerk and her boyfriend both tracts. Fields near here grow legal pot and alfalfa. The latter is owned by an Arabic sheik, who ships his entire crop to the Middle East for his racing horses! None is sold in the USA. Sometimes he visits in a fleet of limousines with his own security forces! We saw across the fields three rainbows and a beautiful sunset. We gave tracts to 8 people before we left the next morning. People came out of their campers when it is cool!
May
We drove to Hidden Beaches RV Park, Blythe, CA, beside the Colorado River. I gave 4 tracts to a clerk at office, and three campers near us. I talked and prayed with one man who asked us to pray for his wife, who just learned she has breast cancer. I talked and gave tract to a ex-cop & vet from northern CA.
We drove to United Baptist Church, Carson, CA. Pastor James Go met us. So good to see him! He had agreed to allow us to park behind the church building, and church member Johnlou Datingaling helped us connect to the church electricity! Yea! This saved us at least $1,000 in RV camp fees while we were in LA area! God blessed us by this church!
We met our daughter at Red Robin, had a great reunion with her! Our dog Cody had a fit when he saw her! She gave us 200 more tracts from Living Waters where she works.
I gave a brief report to United Baptist Church on Sunday, May 2nd. The people responded well. We had a great visit with another pastor and his wife in Orange County, who showed us their home.
We went with our daughter on Mother’s Day, the 9th, to her church, and enjoyed the service there! Most Sundays she operates one of the sanctuary cameras.
We really enjoyed both Pastors Breakfasts (Wednesdays) we attended while in SoCal! We saw about 20 of the pastors that we know and worked with while I was DOM at LBHA. Great fellowship! I shared with them the tracts that we use, and encouraged them to use tracts with the people they meet in their daily routines, and to encourage their congregations to do the same.
We met with IMB missionary friends, who have had to return to USA because of the pandemic. Please pray for them, and that mission field. I left tract with the waitress at the restaurant.
We got to celebrate our daughter’s birthday with her and several friends a few days before the actual date! Yea!
At Pastor Go’s invitation, I had the privilege of preaching the Sunday morning sermon at United Baptist Church on May 16th, first time I’ve preached in two years! I preached from Luke 19:11-27, entitled “From One Mina to Ten Cities.” The first amazing point about this passage is that it is one which teaches that God will strongly rebuke believers in heaven, although they will still be saved. The second amazing point is how utterly overwhelming will be the rewards in heaven for those believers who do even the least work in God’s Kingdom! You can find it on our website under ‘Articles.’
On May 17th we helped our daughter celebrate her birthday by going to Seal Beach, having lunch there, giving a tract to the waitress, walking on the beach, and then going that night to an Angels game where the Angels beat the Cleveland Indians 7 to 4! A fun day with our sweet daughter!
On the day we left, the 18th, she gave us a 5 foot stuffed giraffe to give to our granddaughters in Kentucky. What a job to cart it all across the USA! But the girls had a ball with it when we got it to them in June.
We drove to Lakeside Casino & RV Park in Pahrump, NV. I gave a tract to waiter in the RV Cafe. I gave to our next door camper a Gospel of John and a tract.
We drove to Flying J and Tire Dealer at Mesquite, NV, where we gassed up, then saw that our RV tires were beginning to dry rot somewhat. These are the tires on the RV when we bought it in 2017, and in the past two years we have driven over 17,000 miles on them. So we bought six new tires, rated at 50,000 miles of wear. God had provided the funds, since over a dozen people in SoCal had given us gifts of funds! Praise the Lord! We gave three tracts to the tire techs who put on the new tires. The one new tire that was bought in Jackson, MS, was put in the spare tire holder.
We drove to Canyons of Escalante RV Park, Escalante, UT, where we stayed three nights. Gave two tracts to a couple from Oregon. Gave two tracts to wait staff at the 4th West Pub, where we ate dinner. Gave tract to clerk at hardware store where I bought a lock. We went to the Kodachrome State Park, about 40 miles away. Beautiful rock formations. I gave three tracts to three NC ladies, who had crossed the bridge over the Mississippi River at Memphis, TN, the day they found the huge cracks in it! Gave Visitors Center clerk a tract, too. Lane and I have decided that God loves rocks, after seeing this park and driving through CA, NV, and southern UT! Chimney Rock is a towering pillar in the middle of a field, and there are sheer cliffs with huge boulders bigger than houses! We decided that God has a rock collection, and He paints them! We have seen so many amazing rock formations already, and we still plan to visit two national parks in southern Utah!
We went to Bryce Canyon National Park, about fifty miles away from our campground—so beautiful! Windy at the top of the cliffs. We rode the free shuttles from lookout point to lookout point. The views are stunning. Lane pranked me at one lookout. She knows I have a fear of heights, and I was leaning on a log barrier. As I told a lady (who also has a fear of heights) that I could not stand there at the cliff edge without that barrier to protect me, Lane knew it could shift, and she moved it a couple of inches. I thought I was going over, and jumped a mile! We did not go to Rainbow Point, but they told us you can see the northern rim of the Grand Canyon from it!
I gave about a dozen tracts or more to people on the shuttles, to one driver and the assistant at a stop, and to the two clerks at the RV park office. Fun. I gave three tracts to three SBC couples from northeast CO. Gave two tracts to two people at Subway.
We went to Escalante Cabins & RV Park for one night. Gave a tract to an aerospace engineer from FL, a tract to a couple walking around, and a tract to a young adult guy in the laundromat there. We ate again at 4th West Pub, and gave a tract to the owner.
Leaving Escalante, we went through Richfield, stopped at the Walmart there, and I gave a tract to a RV couple there from CA. We went to Thousand Lakes RV Park in Torrey, UT, for eight nights. I gave tracts to clerk and camper guest in lobby. Gave tracts to two other clerks in the office, and young man outside the office, too. Gave one to young adult clerk at hardware store, two tracts to lady from central NC, two tracts to ex-cop from St. George, UT, one to NJ couple, and one to Salt Lake City house builder.
We drove to Capital Reef National Park, about nine miles away from the town. Huge towering cliffs, boulders bigger than a house, and deep ravines called ‘washes.’ Such a beautiful world our Heavenly Father has made! I gave two tracts to a man whose wife had to be taken to Payson, UT, hospital yesterday. Prayed with him for her. Heard later that she recovered and they went home.
I talked to a Christian couple from Nederland, TX, next door site to our RV site. Gave tracts to man from Park City, UT, and a man originally from Marin County, CA, who knew the story about Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary moving to SoCal. Gave two tracts to a SBC couple from northern GA, who plan to attend the SBC Annual Meeting in Nashville this June. We did not go to it.
We drove to and boondocked at Walmart at Springville, UT. I witnessed to a 81 year old man, who is an atheist. He has severe health issues, and is on oxygen 24/7. I gave him a Gospel of John, which he promised to read, and our bcard. We ate at Strap Tank Pub (restaurant), gave tracts to couple next to us and the waitress.
We drove to Glendale Baptist Church on California Avenue in Salt Lake City, which is the first church I pastored in 1979 & 1980, right out of the seminary. It’s still there, with an additional building for a Vietnamese church! The main building now houses an Hispanic congregation and a community center run by the local SBC association! Wow, 41 years, and the ministry is still ongoing! Praise the Lord! It’s in the heart of the LDS headquarters city, and when we left, we didn’t know if it would survive! But the work is still being done! God is good, and God kept it going! Seeing the location brought back a lot of memories: Robert Johnson (he and his wife gave their house to the church, before we came to Glendale, to be sold so the church could build the facilities), Juanita McKissick, a family with a deaf pre-teen whom Lane put in the Christmas play (he signed, “We saw the star also.”), a woman whose nephew I visited in the Utah state prison (there for killing a man), Lane signing for an all-deaf family in the city hospital ER, and more. Wow. The buildings were closed for Memorial Day, so we didn’t get to go inside. We took pictures of the site, which is directly across the street from an LDS Ward (congregation’s building).
We drove to Pocatello, ID, and boondocked at the Walmart in Chubbuck there.
June
The next day we saw the Grand Tetons from the west at Idaho Falls, and drove to West Yellowstone, MT, just a half mile from the Yellowstone National Park entrance. We stayed at Pony Express RV Park (two nights), Valley View RV Park (two nights in Island Park, ID), and Grizzly RV Park (three nights). The majority of Yellowstone is in Wyoming, with slivers of the park in Montana and Idaho.
Words fail to describe the beauty of Yellowstone National and Grand Teton National Parks. We spent six days exploring Yellowstone, one day in Grand Teton and Jackson, WY, passing through Yellowstone to get to the latter park and area. I will have to summarize what we saw:
Over 200 bison, including being caught in a ‘walking stampede’ of over 100 bison and their calves (we were in our car! We didn’t dare get out!). Two grizzlies and their cubs. Two elk. Over 100 deer and close to 100 antelope. Flocks of ducks and geese, and an otter that ran across the road as we sat at the curb. Two dozen or more geysers, including Old Faithful and Steamboat geysers. Paint pots geysers, boiling springs, geysers that ran down mountain sides, mountains, forests, vast fields, at least four large waterfalls that were stunning, the Continental Divide in two places, a huge lake, and more. We spent a week, and could have easily spent two more weeks to see the rest. Truly our favorite national park. I literally prayed that God will not allow the mega volcano beneath this park to erupt. It would be a huge loss to the nation, our children, and our descendants, besides the loss of life. It would be worse than Mt. St. Helens.
We gave over 100 tracts to other tourists and campers, national park staff, campground staff, wait staff in restaurants, clerks in gas stations and stores, etc. No one turned them down, including LDS people.
Gassed up at Flying J at Idaho Falls, gave a tract to clerk.
Boondocked at Walmart in Chubbuck, ID, again. Got our first vaccine shot at Walmart there, even though I don’t want it. I’m learning how peer pressure fear makes people do things that they don’t want to do, like this. We’re doing it because of others fearing to be around us if we don’t.
Boondocked at the Walmart in Evanston, WY.
It was very windy driving to Desert Rose RV Park, Rawlins, WY. There were gusts up to 40 mph.
We drove to Terry Bison Ranch (a RV park), 12 miles south of Cheyenne, WY, and only a mile north of CO state line. Very nice, fun park. Gave tracts to young adult lady clerks in office. Gave tract and bcard to campers next to us, who were just leaving. Gave tracts to waiter at ranch restaurant, to a couple from CO, and to a man from Maine. Three tracts to three staffers at propane filling station. Tract to gas station clerk.
We boondocked at Walmart in North Platte, NE. Gave a tract each to two Wisconsin couples traveling together.
We boondocked at Sam’s Club in Lincoln, NE. Gave tract to a minister’s family at nearby restaurant.
We boondocked at Walmart in Higginsville, MO. Gave tract to man from house across the street, who walked over to see the RV.
We drove to Archway RV Park, Mt. Vernon, IL. Gave tracts to a lady in the office, a man who was another RV camper, a lady from Wisconsin, and a male staffer.
On the drive to my Mom’s house in Greenville, KY, I gave tract to lady manager at a restaurant in Madisonville, KY. Parked on street in front of my mother’s.
I talked with neighbors behind my mother’s house, gave them two tracts. One of them had twin baby boys, who were 15 weeks premature, and had to have heart surgery for their valves. Praying for them. Also gave tracts to two other of my mother’s neighbors, one of whom is 99 years old!
We drove to Charlestown SP, and gave tract to assistant park manager. We gave tracts and bcards to a lady RV camper and her adult son, and to another RV camper.
Lane’s mother had a pacemaker put in, but is still having some difficulties, and is in the hospital as I write this report. Please pray for Betty. She is 89 years old.
We drove to Taylorsville Lake SP, set up, and put our trailer in boat parking area after unloading the car and scooter.
Our electric generator had gone out in Higginsville, MO, so when I saw a mobile RV tech drive through the park, I walked to where he was working on another RV. While waiting on him, I talked with and gave three tracts to a young adult couple. When the RV tech looked at our RV, he checked first the coach’s batteries, and discovered that they needed replacing. I also gave him two tracts.
The next day, we bought two new 6-volt coach batteries, put them in, and charged them for 24 hours. I gave the battery dealer a tract, too. After charging, generator still didn’t work, although we did need the batteries. So now it’s either the solenoid or the control panel. We’ll have to take the RV to Camping World or a RV dealer.
We’ve seen lots of wildlife here: four deer and two fawns, mama skunk and four babies, two adult raccoons and three babies, two adult turkeys and three turkey chicks, and five feral kittens! Whew. While sitting at a late night fire, one of the kittens and two raccoons came right up to my lawn chair. When I moved, they bolted! At another restaurant in Louisville, KY, we left a tract with the tip for the waitress.
On June 26th, I walked the campground, talked with about 35 people, and gave away 22 tracts. Fun.
On the 29th, we both got our 2nd vaccine shot. Only effects were sore shoulders. Grateful for that.
I gave tracts to man who stopped by to ask me how old our RV is (he has one the same age), and to a Guatemala native young adult grass mower.
During these three months, we gave away 330 tracts, five gospels of John, and several of our bcards. For Sunday morning worship services during the pandemic, we usually watched our daughter’s church service online. She’s in Orange County, CA.
We use the Passport America app for finding a lot of the RV Parks, along with the all stays app, and by researching the state and national parks along our routes. We generally drive 4-5 hours a day, when we are on the road.
While at United Baptist Church in Carson, one of the members recommended using Zelle for those people who wanted to send financial support to us. So if you do, go to Zelle, and use ‘Marian Graham’ and her phone number 563-676-5740. Please note that we are not a non-profit.
We update our website (www.godzfriends.net) and my Facebook page (Richard Graham) every 3-5 days, so people can keep up with us and pray for us and our RV ministry. Please check it out! Thank you for all your prayers! Our Lord has been providing for all our needs!
A good friend and fellow minister, Rev. Sung Lee, who for fifteen years was the associational seaport chaplain for the Long Beach and Los Angeles Harbors, is now a seaport chaplain in Houston, TX. You can find him and his ministry on Facebook.
