We just had a few days of helping out at Kent’s parents small farm in Bellingham, WA. That is about 2 hours north of Seattle.  We have loved visiting them a little more this summer.  No, we aren’t particularly close even though we are living in Spokane, WA. We are about 6-8 hours drive away and it depends on the route that you take. We have taken the beautiful scenic route through the Cascade Mountains two times now.  It is a really gorgeous drive and I do enjoy seeing the mountains covered with the pretty NW evergreens and other vegetation in this area of the country.  

We also had some good times with Kent’s only sister LeAnn and her husband Ken.  We always enjoy being with them.

While with Mom and Dad Reimer, Kent and I had the chance to get to the beach on the Pacific Ocean.  You see I need a “beach fix” every once in a while. That is because Kent doesn’t really like the beach so he does this for me to not miss it too much.  I really like to go and enjoy the warm beaches where you can swim, but if all I get once in awhile is to see and hear the ocean and hear it, well that is pretty good too.

We drove home on Tuesday and have been trying to get a lot done before Saturday when we both fly to Denver for about a week. We have meetings at our headquarters and then a quick flight to Portland, Oregon for an all day conference that Kent is speaking at as well. So a busy next 10 days.

I did some reflecting today as well as probably most of the nation.  September 11, 2001.   I do remember being so glad that Kara, our daughter who was at a college only a hour by train to NYC, I was so glad to hear from her and know she was ok. Our son, Josh was in the US for another two weeks but headed back to N. Ireland not long afterwards as a missionary.  I was grateful to know they were both in the states on that day.  But I am so proud of our nation and how they responded. I do think the people who did this figured that this attack would knock us for a loop, and they were surprised at how we pulled together and helped each other.  What a legacy to remember and to continue! May God help us all to remember that much of that day.

May God help you to bless someone today!

Love the Roving Reimers




 

 After 8 weeks of no rain that is  NEWS! The grass has gotten greener and flowers and all are trying to perk up after all the sunshine and no rain.  

Kent flew to Phoenix, AZ on Monday to kick off the mission trips that he has been working on for the students of SouthWestern College.  He had lunch with the president and has met with several others. So he has felt that the kick off went well. We are expected to stay on campus again and that is a nice idea. So the trip has been a success.

He flies back on Saturday and we hope to go and see his parents again in Bellingham.  That is at least 7 hours away so we haven’t the the trip as often as we had thought we might.  But we would like to go and help around the farm again. We are still ironing out the details.

I got to go to a beautiful local park here in Spokane.  I love flowers and they had several areas with different types of flowers and bushes.  The one main part reminded me of a park called Mozart Park that we saw in Austria.  Very beautiful and full of color. Nice day out with our hostess and her daughter and children. Afterwards we had a Turkish meal at her daughter’s house.  Very delicious too.

Today on my way to the local library, I stopped to buy some local peaches from a man who advertised along the road. The peaches look wonderful but the conversation with the man was even better. I first was admiring his flowers and lawn,  after that we got to talking about our RV lifestyle a little because he and his wife would like to downsize.  When I said that Kent still worked full time the conversation went  from that to what we do and to spiritual things.  He was a believer and we talked about world missions until another customer came.   Sometimes in this lifestyle I become discouraged about not having any friends and then God blesses me with people like this.  So two ways that God has blessed me just lately, a visit to a beautiful garden and a believer that was willing to talk and share a bit.  

May God use you also to encourage someone.  

Love Jan for the Roving Reimers

August 8, 2008 was a memorable date for Kent and I .

That date marked the 1 year anniversary for us to live full time in our new “house” our Recreational Vehicle. So it is time to reflect.

What have we LEARNED in one year?

1. Kent and I enjoy living a little more simply with less stuff.

2. We can live in 300 square feet after having a much larger house for years. We haven’t had to many squabbles because of this small space. We do try to give room for each other to get their jobs done.

3. Hooking up our Truck to the RV can be as tricky or scary as almost anything in this lifestyle. This is my(Jan’s) hardest thing to do.

4. Glasses and dishes can travel safely in an RV, even crystal goblets.

5. We still get to see and feel close to our grown children and Silas our only grandson. VERY Important! I, Jan wondered about this and God has given some great times with our children.

6. We can Work full time and live in our house on wheels. We say we own “wheel estate.” This we heard from someone else but it certainly fits us.

7. Meeting new people is a constant but pleasurable experience. In an RV your neighbors are generally pretty close. We were surprised to find some close relationships have formed. We are so grateful for Mike and Ruth, Denny and Brenda, and also for Lisa. We find that most people are friendly but especially RVers and most especially full timers..that is what people that live in their RVs all the time are called.

8. All the stuff we left behind, we didn’t really need.

9. Getting service done at a dealership isn’t so bad. In fact, we have some great experiences especially in Spokane, Washington.

10. We would still buy the RV we bought with all of our modifications, our big Truck and our little car. I love my “house” on wheels. We did about 10 years of research and we weren’t sure it was enough, but after living with those decisions for a year now, we are still very happy campers, literally!

What would we do differently? Not much..we are pretty content, but...

1. We would slow down and “smell the roses or cactus” more often. We do plan to do that more in this next year.

2. I would not bring along my scrapbooking stuff. I haven’t had a chance to open it at all in a year!

3. We did hear of something we want to adopt while traveling. Some other Full timers have a 2-2-2 rule. They drive for 200 miles, stay two days and get there by two in the afternoon. We like that too because it will slow us down more.

We have had some learning experiences along the way..

1. Our first day leaving Denver..and I feel out of our big truck. OUCH! But thankfully no broken bones. Just wounded pride and arm...

2. The hookup and unhooking process is a little different in various circumstances, ie: different levels of RV and truck, like when the truck is on a hill..and the RV isn’t.

3. Our truck’s brakes really do stop us when needed. Praise God only one close call, but noone hurt. The brakes do a great job going down a mountain too. We have done that several times. Yeah!

4. We are a long “train” when we are all hitched up. We don’t turn on dime, nor do we go where it won’t hold our RV’s weight. We look before we drive off the road!

Well that is about enough reflecting..

Have a great day.

Love, the Roving Reimers 

We flew back to Washington on Thursday, Aug 14th from our visit to Pennsylvania.  It seemed like a very long day for us, since we had the 3 hours time difference but also had a 3 hour layover in Seattle.  So our bodies felt like it was 4 am by the time we got to bed. We have taken it easy for several days.  We have been catching some of the Olympics. Fun!

On Sunday we had about 20 degrees higher than normal temperature...over 103 degrees here.  And that is hot by any one’s standards! We stayed close to our house where thankfully the air conditioning was working well.  But we are grateful now as the temperatures are even below normal at 74 degrees and we are all enjoying the cooler day. 

We had to pack up our house again last evening to go back to the RV dealership to continue to get the work done on our hydraulics. There are some needed tests to diagnosis the problem.  So then we hope they will have the parts to properly fix it too.

We did know when we moved into our house, that these kinds of things will happen from time to time. We do have good facilities at the RV dealership and they are very nice and are really trying to get this fixed for us too. so We do not fault anyone, but we are hoping that this time it will be fixed before we move back to the horse farm.

We pray that you are all well and enjoying your summer.


Jan for the Roving Reimers


 

We are continuing our visit in PA with family, friends and supporters. We have had such a great time and enjoying being among some very beloved friends again!  Our supporting churches here are always so encouraging too.

We seem to keep running into people we know at unlikely places, such as at the local Curves for Women, the local farmer’s market or at a Starbucks coffee shop.  That does happen when we come to visit, but this time we have run into some people that we actually haven’t seen in many years.  God blessed us with many great visits and good interactions with family as well.  Our time is fast coming to a close and we usually run in high gear then.  One more day until we fly back to Spokane and our house.

Kent has continued with counseling people interested in serving in missions while we are here. He has had several long telephone interviews of candidates or pastors.  We recently heard from a family that went to Africa this summer for a two week trip. They want to apply for full time service. How exciting! these are the days that bless us and all those that support us are a part of these successes.

I still have a long visit with my mom, a neice and nephew.  So we are looking forward to them.  God surely has given the strength to keep going.  We do look forward to being in our house again soon.

Thanks for your interest!

Jan for the Roving Reimers

Today we are in Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania which is Jan’s hometown. We flew here(it was way too far to drive just now) last Wednesday to go to a missions conference at a supporting church and to see family, friends and supporters in the area. We are here for two weeks.

Just before we left Spokane, Kent’s sister and her husband drove over the mountains from Seattle. They had some grand children to visit in Moses Lake about 2 hours west of us and then they came for a two day stay with us. We soo enjoyed seeing them and having them come to visit us as we often visit them in Bellinhgam, WA. We had a great time together including them staying in our RV on our hide abed. They were troopers.

We had a good conference over the weekend complete with a PA afternoon shower. Everything is so green here and coming from a near desert climate we do appreciate that.

Have any of you been or heard of to Lancaster County, PA? Well it has tons of farms and a great Farmer’s Market with lots of things beyond farmer’s produce. But it is fun to go to and Kent and I have it on our calendar for Tuesday as that is the day it is open.

We were at a farewell last night for some old friends from this area that are moving to Ohio. We got to see lots of people there too.

We are also here to visit my aging mother. She is now 87 and having some difficulties. Sometimes it is better to actually see them besides the phone calls. She still is driving although very limited, but many things to consider with older adults. We pray that we will have God’s wisdom to know how to “honor” our parents in these years.

Well, enjoy the summer wherever you are. I am loving being in PA for a few weeks. In case any of you are wondering where we have our “house”..it is still parked at the horse farm in Spokane. Our hosts allowed us to leave it there for this trip. Our hostess in Spokane, Brenda is recovering from an emergency gall bladder surgery which happened the weekend before we left Spokane.

May God bless you all really well today! Jan for the Roving Reimers

We are still in Spokane, Washington. We have had several times of visiting a RV dealership in town to fix a hydraulic issue. On Monday night we drove and parked overnight to miss the morning traffic. This dealership has a very nice place to park if you need to. So Tuesday morning early we had them look at our problems. After several hours it looked like they had it fixed, but since it was something that slowly leaked...they suggested we stay for several days and check it out over time. So that is where I write from tonight. It is very comfortable and quiet here in the evenings and at night. So it hasn’t been hard at all. We have been treated so well at this dealership which is R n R RV in Liberty lake, WA(it is just east of Spokane). I would suggest to anyone who needed and RV or something fixed to come here. It is probably the best service we’ve had.

We leave here tomorrow and go back to the horse farm. We look forward to the Settler’s Days of the closest town,this weekend. That should be fun.

We did get to have a new experience on this past weekend. We went to a Cherry Festival. What it really was, was a festival to pick cherries in several fairly close by orchards. What sweet cherries! How fun!

We did take a trip two weekends ago over the mountains to visit Kent”s parents on their little farm. We wanted to help out as they are in their 80’s now. We felt a little weeding and other chores might be helpful. We greatly enjoyed our short visit and the work did get done. Dad’s garden is just starting to produce too. Yummy spring peas.

I do hope you all are having a good summer and enjoying some quiet times with family and just by yourself. May God grant you peace!

From the Roving Reimers

We are still in Spokane, Washington and have had a very different experience yesterday. We have been parked at a small farm about 10 miles out of Spokane in the country. Most of the country side around there was pastureland or fallow fields with some of the beautiful tall Ponderosa Pines with some Blue Spruce. We love this spot and I have just totally enjoyed having countryside to look at out my windows.

On Wednesday of this week we had an appointment at a local RV dealer to get some needed warranty work done. So we left the farm and went into Spokane about a 18 mile drive. We have been parked for these past two night on the grounds of the RV dealer which even had electric hookup for us. so we could use our air conditioner when necessary. We were getting the work done that they could do, although they are referring us to a hydraulic dealer for the troubles with our hydraulics. The hydraulics are what power our slides and also the jacks under the unit. So it is a pretty important system to be worked on properly.

We will be moving to this other company this afternoon and see if they can help us with it.

Our weather has been pretty nice , although everyone form here was saying that is was hotter than usual at high 90’s. We were comfortable and at night the temps drop to a cool 60’s normally and so sleeping is very comfortable. Well on Thursday we awoke to some wind and in the low 70’s. But we noticed that the wind was getting stronger as the day wore on. 12 noon was pretty windy but not so bad but by 4 pm we were being buffeted so bad I was wondering if we needed to move to be safe. At 6 pm as I was trying to get supper ready I really wondered if we might be in trouble. We had turned on the TV as we had been smelling a smoke smell. Well there were several wildfires burning throughout the city already and the high winds(gusts of up to 58 mph) were pushing them and they were moving pretty fast. By 8 pm they had evacuated part of the city where the houses were in danger. We kept the TV on and kept listening although the winds had died down and by 11 pm the winds were back to about 11 mph. So we felt safe to go to bed since we were a long way from the evacuation area and the winds had almost stopped.

This morning we heard that NO ONE was hurt in this fire that has destroyed only 8 houses but about 1200 acres of grassland and woods. It is amazing to us to see how something can be so destructive but praising God for how everyone was protected or got out of the way of the fire. Of course we could have moved to a safer location if we had been in danger...but with those high gusts I wonder how we would have gone down the road. I am grateful that God allowed us to be where we could stay put and still be safe.

Some of you may know that as a child of 5 years old my family lost our home and all the furnishings. Our family always talked of what we wished we could have gotten out..we always missed the pictures. But no one was hurt and that was more important. It does bring this kind of thing a little closer to me though.

Sometimes God brings these kinds of things to happen to allow us to realize how blessed we are and that things are only things. The real treasure is the relationships that we have and are making for the kingdom...this includes our families and friends too. May you be blessed today in a new way realizing your blessings.

From the Roving Reimers Kent and Jan

We were to leave Kent's uncle’s house in the morning but when Kent went to warm up the truck, apparently it had an air leak(we can’t go that way!). So he did some running around in our little car to find the part etc.  I just sat in our house and read and waited.  Actually Kent’s cousin’s daughter. Madison aged 10 stopped by to say good bye and her brother was pretty sick so we prayed for him. So we had a good visit while Kent diagnosed and fixed the problem on the truck. So after lunch we took off.

Now we had been having some small problems with our refrigerator and had called ahead from Phoenix(about 3 weeks before) and made an appointment to have it looked at before we left Grand Junction. So off we went for that appointment.  It should have been a simple 30 minutes at the most job but, unfortunately it turned into something more.  When they pulled out the wiring to put in a new switch apparently the welding didn’t hold that held the switch to the motherboard.And of course the dealership didn’t have our motherboard nor the proper switch.  Well, there where calls to the factory( no more new motherboards until the end of June. We really can’t live without our refrigerator that long!) So again more calls, in the end they soldered the switch back in place with the old one..but it was make shift.  So maybe we should have it checked out later on. 

By now it was 3 in the afternoon.  We had dry camped at our uncle’s so we decided to go to a nearby campground and stay overnight... We needed to do some laundry and dump our tanks, needed air conditioning for the night and we wanted to watch our frig.

 We also had a musty smell that we had noticed and wanted to empty the basement of everything and check it out.  So off to the campgrounds around the corner.  It was a Good Sam’s member so we got that discount.  It was easily big enough for us and we soon were settled in.  After starting the laundry I got into the basement.  IG got it entirely unloaded into the sunshine and slight wind.  I could not find the source of the smell.  We wondered about it some but after airing the basement for 3 hours decided to clean it up and then reload.  At least I got it even more organized than it was and everything smelled good then.

So we had a sort of different day but we thank God for the beautiful house we live in and the good strong truck to pull it down the road,and don’t forget that cute little Suzuki SX4 that gets us to the store and lots of other places.

That was our day,on Monday.  After a good night’s sleep we got up on Tuesday and headed off “down the road” again.  We drove to Salt Lake City and dry camped at Camping World. Of course we went inside and bought the things that were on our list while there.  We left there by 8:45am and were on the road and into a rain storm.  I was much relieved by the time we got out of the big city traffic and the rain had also stopped by then.  We are now camped in a beautiful city park in Idaho Falls, Idaho.  We are right on the Snake River.  Quiet and very green here, a little cooler tonight but I am enjoying having long sleeves on again.

All kinds of days come our way and we just are thankful for God giving us wisdom on how to get past obstacles and move on...as for all of us, right?

On the road, Jan for the Roving Reimers

This was written on May 20th and I thought I posted...but didn’t, sorry about that.   I was ready to move when the time came in May. We are going north leaving Phoenix and will end up in Spokane,Washington to park our house for a few months.  

We drove the first day to Kayenta, Arizona, it is a town on an Indian reservation. We stayed in an empty lot right across from the Police station. It was nice to have a cool night.  We have seen some beautiful scenery and last night parked in a RV park in Moab, Utah. This is a gorgeous part of the world.  Warm enough in the daytime to have some fun times but cool at night. It seems to be a place where many adventure tours start from.  We aren’t too far from the Grand Canyon, Canyonlands National Park, also Arches National Park and several others.  It has a reddish tint to the rocks around here and that makes it pretty as a contrast to the barren desert around it.  We are in the spring here and so many desert plants and cacti are blooming and some green grass. Very pretty!

We drove on to Grand Junction, Colorado.  Kent’s Uncle and Aunt live there and after a visit with them, we left our house there for a week. We went to Denver to see our daughter, Kara and husband Nicholas. We also saw our headquarters staff and had meetings in our department while there.  We do have a few supporters there and also in Grand Junction and saw them as well. Kent also spoke at Calvary Bible Church on Sunday June 1st. So it has been a busy 10 days, but fun too.

Have a great day.

Love,
 Jan for the Roving Reimers

Yes, we were in Ann Arbor, Michigan for a week with our son, Josh , his wife Teresa and little Silas!!!  Silas is 2 1/2 years old and such fun! Kent and I had the entire Easter week to spoil him and give him lots of attention. When we drove to the airport he expected to be taken out of his car seat to go with us...When I didn’t take him out he kind looked away like he was mad ..I know he didn’t understand. But he is so dear and fun to be with. We got to be with his other grandparents too and Teresa’s whole family was there for Easter. So that was fun.

 
We even got to see some snow while there. The Michiganders were probably very tired of snow but I didn’t mind. I had another Gout attack while there, but thankfully I don’t have the excruciating pain that often comes with it. I did need to put my foot up though and so wasn’t exactly the life of the party! It is getting better again and I did get some folic acid that was reported to help. Yeah!

 
But yesterday I did a really ditsy thing. I was trying to braise a roast for getting it ready for a the crock pot...and it flipped out and I caught it by my wrist and forearm...well the olive oil I was using was very hot..and it splashed onto my arm. I did put ice on it and then aloe vera gel It looks and feels much better today...I was lucky! No, I believe that God protected me. These things do happen to all of us. I am so glad that it didn’t blister... We are back in Phoenix and now parked on South Western college campus. I will post a few pics for you to see... enjoy! Jan for the Reimers