First Quarter 2022 RV Ministry Report
The big news is that the Lord has enabled us to buy a house! As I said in the last RV Ministry Report (you can find this on our website under RV Ministry Reports), we just wanted to see if buying a house was possible for us, given our financial status. But God was very good to us. We now have a 3BR, single bath, with full basement house. It has a two car garage, back and front yard, and is in a nice neighborhood ten miles from our oldest son, daughter-in-law, and two beautiful granddaughters! PTL! We moved into it January 7th, and have been enjoying living here so much! We both are still amazed at how God put it all together! From the time we decided to see if it was even possible, it took God seven weeks until we were all moved in! It’s great!
The first 23 days of January, we shared the Gospel through tracts to 28 people, along with several bcards. We visited five SBC churches, asking the Lord to guide us to the church where He wants for us. On January 13th, we helped Lane’s parents celebrate her father’s 90th bday. Our RV refrigerator went out, so we will have to replace it before we can travel again. We had to fix a plumbing stoppage, and do a termite treatment (no termites, but required by our mortgage company).
We unloaded boxes from our RV and from our Kentucky storage units, and set up our BRs. One BR is now a craft room for Lane, and another is her office. My writing office will be in the RV, which is parked in our backyard. Our second son, who had been with us for the holidays, moved back to Florida. (Our daughter is living in SoCal.). In unloading boxes, we found stuff we haven’t seen in over four years! Every now and then Lane gives a cry of delight when she ‘rediscovers’ something that gives us a flood of remembrance!
We continue to give tracts to whomever we meet—fast food clerks, store clerks, neighbors. Our neighborhood has a FB group page, and I hope we will make friends there, and have some open doors to share the Gospel with them. Like the RV campgrounds, every place you and I occupy is a mission field! Sow the seed of the Gospel!
We continue to visit our parents, our oldest son and his family, and churches in the area. One church in particular is very evangelistic, has identified needs in the area, and is trying to meet them. On February 1st, the news reported that a lady was killed in front of the Walmart we use. A truck going through the parking lot hit her, and she died on the spot. Death can come so quickly!
I am also working on a book that I want to publish. Please pray for that work. We joined a local SBC church, GracePointe Baptist church in the Valley Station area. The pastor is Bro. Mark Bishop. They had a revival in February, with Dr. Mike Stone, who was one of the nominees for SBC president this past June. The revival went very well, with many decisions. This church is also doing a weekly outreach, going door to door to invited people to our Good Friday and Easter morning services.
We gave tracts to the grandfather clock repairman and the men who moved Lane’s player piano from her parents house. Both give us sweet memories, since we haven’t had these instruments for years.
We did a little inventory of the house, and compared that with the 22 items we had been praying a new house would have. Of the 22 features we had listed, this house has 19! Praise the Lord!
Lane had two days of jury duty, and then Covid hit our house! I came down with it first, with high temperatures for 24 hours, and then it felt like a bad cold. Lane came down with it next, and it only felt like a cold to her. We are grateful we had relative mild symptoms! Lane had to tell the jury people she was quarantined with her husband that first week, and so she was excused from further duty. We were also prevented from giving out tracts for about three weeks as a result of this.
On February 24th, our second son called from a Florida hospital, because he had a kidney stone attack. We drove 18 hours to his location, and took care of him for about four-five days. He decided to come back to Kentucky with us, and we drove our car and his car back to our home, taking two days. On the way both ways, we gave away tracts to gas clerks, restaurant clerks, fed four foot alligators, etc., making it a fun trip there and back.
March 4th was my 72nd bday, and I am so grateful for the years and health that the Lord has given to me and to Lane, as well as to the rest of our family! Praise the Lord!
On March 14th and 15th, I attended the Kentucky Baptist Convention’s Evangelism and Missions Conference at Severns Baptist Church in Elizabethtown, KY. There were several excellent speakers, including Danny Forshee, Fred Luter, Nik and Ruth Ripken, George Ross, Bryant Wright, a Bro. John. (IMB msny), Shane Pruitt, and Elmer Towns (who co-founded Liberty University with Jerry Falwell). My pastor, Bro. Mark Bishop, led one of the breakout sessions.
The rest of March, we have been getting the house ready for spring. We continue to meet our neighbors and make friends with them. We are praying for ways to share the Gospel with them as well. I continue to work on my writing, going out with our church to invite people to our Good Friday and Easter services, and meeting people in our neighborhood.
We are praying about when and where to re-start our RV travels. Please pray with us about that, because we will have to replace its refrigerator before we can do so. We also need to do the radon venting treatment in our house. But we are also really enjoying having our own home again. It had been 43 years since we owned a house. We lived in parsonages, apartments, and the RV since the last one. Having your own home is a great blessing!
During January through March, we gave away a total of 85 tracts and some bcards, in spite of being quarantined for Covid and making a five day trip to Florida and back again.
Thank you for your prayers! They are greatly valued and felt!
Richard and Lane Graham
RV Missionaries, www.godzfriends.net
