The boat ordeal!

After class on Tuesday at about 12:15 pm I got a call from Arlan Tiegs and he told me that it looked like the front of my boat was riding high in the water. This usually means that there is lots of water in the back and that it might sink soon. It was a super windy day, so I was not too surprised. I drove over there as fast as I could, but by the time I got there, the boat was already under the frigid water. It was a sad sight.

There was a bunch of junk floating around in the slip, so I grabbed everything and threw it in the fishing room so that it wouldn't blow away. Arlan showed up after a few minutes and we decided that we would need some come-alongs (the cables with hooks on the end and a ratchet in the middle to tighten it up) to pull the boat up enough to bail it out. Thankfully the boat was still tied at the front, or it would have been a much bigger job. I went and got the come-alongs and Arlan had some other work to do, so I worked on it for a while by myself, but didn't really get anywhere. The problem was I didn't have any hooks to get down there far enough and the come-alongs were too short. Arlan was able to come back and help again, and he suggested trying to get the front of the boat up on the dock a ways and then pull up on the sides slowly.

So we hooked onto one of the dock posts and grabbed the front of the boat and cinched it up.
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Once we got it pulled up a ways, we tied it there with a few ropes and then took the come along and hooked the side of the boat near the back. We used the rafters to hook onto and then fished the other end down in the water until it grabbed something. We were just hoping that it would hold until we could get it up high enough to bail. It started to pull it to the side, so we did the same thing on the other side to keep it straight and then we cinched both sides up at the same time until the back end was out a little bit.

Once we got it to that point, we both got buckets and bailed until most of the water was out of the boat. We took off the ropes on the front and let it slide back until it was floating again, and then we bailed out the rest of the water and turned on the bilge pump. By this time it was snowing pretty good, so it was miserable, but we rejoiced that it was up again. Little did I know this was just the beginning!

An outboard motor will rust very quickly if water gets into it, so you have to get it running as soon as possible. Arlan had to go back to work, and I thought it would be pretty easy to get it running again. Since the gas tanks had been in the water, I went up to the gas station and got some new gas and oil. By the time I got back most everything was frozen already, including the key hole. It took about 5 minutes of breathing on the key hole to even get the key in, and then I realized that the motor was freezing and it would not turn over. By this time I was getting a little panicked, so I went over and found Arlan again and he didn't really have any good ideas either. We both knew that we needed to get the boat into the shop, but we had no idea how.

The predicament was that during the winter, the Lake of the Ozarks is down a few feet. This makes it difficult to get a boat in or out. Since the motor wasn't working, we would have to tow it or try and row it, and the wind was blowing really hard. It actually blew so hard that the dock on the other side of the lake was torn off on one side and a large section on the dock on our side was bent back and threatening to tear off completely.

The only other boat in the water at the time was a very small boat and it would be hard to steer it in the wind and towing a bigger boat behind. Even if we could get it somewhere, there really wasn't any way to get a trailer down to the water with out a big tractor and it would tear up the bank a lot.

The wind died down a little, so we decided to try and row the boat, so a guy from the mechanic garage on campus came with us to help row. Arlan drove to the other side while we rowed so that we could throw the rope to him. It ended up working very well and we got up really close to the point (a piece of land that sticks out into the cove which has been built up with rocks around the edge). I climbed up and got the boat tied off.

Because the dock on that side had broken off, there was a massive forklift there to hold it in place. Our only option was to put a sling under the boat and borrow the forklift to lift it up and then take it to the trailer and let it down. The problem was all the operators were busy and it looked like the boat would just sit there over night. Just around the time everyone needed to go, they decided that it wouldn't take long to get it up. So Arlan and the guy from the shop put two big ropes under the boat to form a sling and hooked it up to the forklift. While they were doing that, I went and got the trailer. By the time I got the trailer over there, they already had it up and he brought it over closer to the trailer, but the machine operator was late for a meeting, so he left. Another machine operator came over and drove the forklift over to the trailer and put it on there. It was pretty amazing.
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After we got it on the trailer, I took it over to the shop and worked on it until 9:30 pm. Needless to say it was a long tiring day. I didn't get it working that night, so Wednesday at lunch I took it to the Marina down the road so they could fix it up and get the engine all "pickeled" (cleaned out, flushed and coated with fogging oil on the inside). I picked up the boat today and everything is working well. I hope that never happens again!

Many thanks to:
-Arlan Tiegs for helping me the whole way along and moral support
-John Hagen for staying late and lifting the boat out of the water
-Tom Robinson for coming at the end even when he already had plans and finishing with the forklift
-The guy from the shop who I don't even know for helping out
-Joe Bruce for helping me in the shop trying to start it
-Everyone else who helped with information and encouragement

More pictures can be found on our website: http://www.brianjocelyn.com

Young Life Conference

As part of the course here at New Tribes we get to be a part of an outreach into the community. The outreach that I am involved in is called Young Life. This organization is worldwide and they provide a place for kids to come and hear about Christ who would not normally be interested.

There are about 15 of us from New Tribes who help out as leaders during the club nights on Wednesday. Because we are leaders, we had the privilege of going to a leadership conference to help us become better leaders and have fellowship with other leaders. It was a good time of fellowship and relaxation.

Rather than get chairs, most everyone just sat on the floor during the sessions


They had some good comedy


Playing dutch blitz until 3am :)

Christmas Break Overview

Dear friends and family,
After a wonderful Christmas break we are back at school again. I would like to tell you what we did for our break, but it was so eventful that I am just going to try and give you the highlights. We went down to Phoenix for Christmas:


Our family in Arizona

After Christmas, we drove back to Missouri to spend New Years with a whole ton of friends who I grew up with in Ivory Coast:

My friends who I grew up with in the dorm


After spending a wonderful week with them, we flew up to Washington to visit Jocelyn's side of the family and our Church:

Our good friends Robert and Mae who opened their home to us

Here are ten of the highlights of our break:
1. The twelve Christmas clues (thanks to Mary and Julia)
2. God's protection while driving on black ice all night across the Texas panhandle
3. Surprising Jocelyn's family!
4. Seeing people we hadn't seen in many years
5. Ringing in the New Year on the boat in the middle of the Lake of the Ozarks
6. Not jumping in the freezing icy lake with my crazy friends!
7. Sleeping after a super long trip (almost 40 hours of being awake!)
8. Visiting our home church in WA
9. Working on Victor's Go-cart with him (and getting it to work!)
10. Coming home to relax for a few days before classes.

Please visit our website http://www.brianjocelyn.com to see more pictures.

Snowy weekend

It's been a while!!!
This weekend was very busy. We are getting ready to leave for Phoenix for Christmas break and all the students are excited! One of my best friends who I grew up in Africa came to visit his family who live here on campus. Joel along with his wife Stefanie and their 2 month old daughter Sarina arrived last week and we have been enjoying having them here. Jocelyn was signed up to go to a ladies brunch on Saturday morning, so Joel and I decided to get together and hang out. We spent the morning putting together Lego sets. Let me explain...

Ok, Joel's sister is raising money for a choir trip. Someone heard about it and donated a bunch of Lego sets to go towards the cost of the trip. Joel's dad, has been putting the sets together to make sure all the parts are there and taking pictures of them in order to sell them on Ebay. He has already sold a few, but there is much work to be done, so he commissioned Joel and I to help him put the sets together and take the pictures.
I went over to their house around 11am and spent most of the day there. It had just started to snow the night before, and more was due to some before the end of the day. Joel and I each put together a set and then completed on that Joel's dad had started. It was a very busy day for their family so everyone was in and out all day. It reminded us all of being back in the village. Joel and I use to play together all the time because our parents worked in the same village. It was fun to reminisce about some of the crazy things we did when we were growing up. Jocelyn came over in the afternoon and we all hung out and they let us eat supper with them. We went outside and had a snowball fight and tried to sled down the hill on a broken sled. They just don't make them like they used to. :)
Today, we decided to stay in for church instead of risking the drive to town on the slick roads. We went over to one of the other families that I grew up with and had church with them. After church Jocelyn and I had a meeting for one of our classes. What I didn't know was that there was another meeting scheduled for the same time, so I missed the first part of that meeting. I did make it in the end though. After some brief relaxation reading a book, we headed off to a going away party for a lady who worked with my parents who is going back to Ivory Coast. It was fun to be there with so many people who I grew up with.
This new years is going to be very memorable. Even more of my friends are going to come and visit, so we are going to have a new years party! I am looking forward to that a lot! Anyway, hope you have a nice day.

Bri

A day at the park

Hello again,
After church today we had a picnic at the park. The idea behind the picnic was that maybe some people from the surrounding neighborhood would come and we might be able to start a relationship with them. For the last few weeks after church we have been planning the picnic and brainstorming ideas of what we could do to attract the local people. Food is a definite must, but many people want to have fun as well. In order to satisfy them, we rented a moon jumper (one of those inflated things that you can run and jump around in). Another activity we set up was a firing range with an airsoft pistol and some plastic cups for targets. One other thing we set up was a tent where people could get more information about our church. Church ended around 12:30, so we headed right over to the park to get the food ready. I got there ahead of everyone else, but before long tables we being set up and food set out. After setting up the tent and other items, we gave thanks for the meal and began to eat. A couple people showed up from nearby, but for the majority of the people there were from church. Nevertheless we all had a fun time and good fellowship. After lunch we all enjoyed music played by one of the families in the church. There was a song that my mom wanted to sing, but they didn't know it. I whistled it to them and they picked it right up and we sang it together. I am not much of a singer, but it was good. After a while, we packed up and went home. It turned out to be a very nice day.

-Bri

One man's junk is another man's treasure

Yesterday, I went to the junk heap. I had seen in before in passing, but I wanted to see what was in it. Here on campus they buy any materials they need and do all the upkeep themselves. Because of this, there is a large area devoted to old things that might get used sometime so they wont have to buy it. In the same place there is a bicycle graveyard and this is the junk heap that I went to.

I thought that I might find something useful there, so I took a pair of pliers, an adjustable wrench and two screwdrivers. The selection was not disappointing. After much looking, I selected a frame that had a nice chain which I thought would work well. This particular frame still had the seat and handlebars attached, so I had a good head start. Finding tires was a little harder because most of them were rotted or would not hold air. I had to try a few before I found two which would hold any air for a reasonable amount of time. After putting the tires on, I had to hook up the brakes. Thankfully the cables were still there, but the front brake cable was cut, so I could only hook up the back brake.

This is what I ended up with. It still needs a lot of work, but it does function.

Moving in

We would like to show you a few pictures of our house. Before we unpacked anything, we took several pictures of our house, and now that we have finished, we took several more. Now you will be able to see what we have done to make our house into our home.

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Before & After

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Before & After

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Before & After

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Before & After

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Before & After

Here is a massive bug that flew into our house a couple nights ago.


We have a very large front yard.


They have a big storage area for furniture. We picked out what we liked, or traded in what we didn't want.

Home, Sweet Home!

Well, we're working on it :)

But first, the rest of our trip!

Saturday, August 11th--
We did go to Focus on the Family in Colorado Springs, and it was the best "tourist" thing we did on our trip. It was probably the only tourist thing (expect for taking pictures and buying postcards) that we did on our trip. Laura went with us and we spent money in their cool bookstore, Jocelyn got to go down the three story slide (Brian was too tall-- too bad for him), had lunch at Whit's End and explored the "kid's area" downstairs. We would have gone on a tour, but there aren't any on Saturdays (and we had gone on the tour in 2005, but Jocelyn wanted to go again).

With Laura at Focus on the Family

Sunday, August 12th--
Went to church with Laura's family, had lunch with Grandma Nelson and drove back to Wiggins and spent the rest of the day with Grandma Richardson

At Grandma Nelson's house

At Grandma Richardson's farm

Monday, August 13th--
Drove to Salina, Kansas and stayed with Brian's Aunt Linda (and her husband Vince) and Gidget (their weiner dog). We had a really good dinner and got to know them better-- Vince works for a tow truck place and tows eighteen wheelers when they break down or need to move, so he has lots of interesting stories.

Tuesday, August 14th--
Drove to Roach, Missouri! We really like to say "Camdenton" instead of "Roach", but we truly do live in Roach, Missouri! The business address for the school is in Camdenton (5 miles away, even though the campus is in Roach). Camdenton sounds more educated, like "Cambridge" or something like that, and "Roach"...... I'll just let you think of your own comparison for that one :) We arrived around 3pm-- during a very warm part of the day. I believe the temperature reached 110 on Tuesday (and if it wasn't Tuesday, it was Wednesday). Add some humidity on that, and I can't think of a better place in the U.S. to do missions training for Africa :) It is not as bad (heat/humidity) as I anticipated, but it is no picnic, and I am glad we aren't working outside right now, and that Brian's parents are so wonderful and hooked up our air conditioner for us and had it on and cooling our house before we even got here.

Today is Thursday, August 16th, and the last couple days we've just been unpacking and setting up house and shopping for groceries and visiting with friends :) Our apartment is one bedroom (with a nice closet :), a kitchen/dining/living area, and a bathroom with a sink and toilet. We measured our apartment for the fun of it, and figured out how big it is-- 330 square feet! We have had an easier adjustment (coming from a small house) than some of other students coming from bigger houses with more furniture and things that just don't fit. I was stressing a bit on how to fit all our kitchen things into our kitchen space, and God provided a neat little TV stand for the microwave to sit on and a "over the toilet rack" that fits nicely over the microwave instead giving me a total of 6 more shelves! All the student housing comes furnished, so we didn't have to bring any furniture. There is a huge storage garage area for people that want to bring their own furnishings (and then store the ones that the school provides) or want to trade their desk, table, etc... out for a different one, so that was pretty fun finding "treasures" in there. We also found a kitten, but we couldn't keep him.

Something that I've really enjoyed is just getting to be with Brian. Right now we're just settling in and stuff, but over the last 2 weeks we've eaten all three meals a day together and have been with each other everyday, almost all day. None of Brian going to work for 10 hours, and me going somewhere else to work for 8 hours and having different co-workers and supervisors. On Monday, we start classes and orientation, and training to be equipped to share the gospel with people who have never heard it before, and glorify God with our lives. Even with just the short interactions that we've had with friends so far, we are so excited to be here and with other couples (and singles) that have the same goal as we do.

Well, it is past our bedtimes and so we shall try to add pictures tomorrow or sometime soon...
thank you, dear readers, for all your prayers :)

Our new address is:
Brian and Jocelyn Richardson
134 Main Drive #6132
Roach, MO, 65787

Our new home phone number is:
(573) 317-8493

Another Journal Entry (also the name of our most overplayed CD on the trip so far)

Ok, so what have we been up to?

Saturday, August 5th--
WE FINISHED PACKING THE TRAILER! For some reason, I thought it was going to be easier to pack and harder (emotionally) to move away from our friends. It turned out to be the opposite (not to say that I didn't cry about leaving though). It was a job and a half packing everything we owned to move half way across the nation, and we both were disgusted by the amount of stuff that comfortably fit into our 446 square foot home. Saturday evening, I went to a friend's bridal shower and Brian went to my parent's house and hung out with my brothers. At the end of our evening, we enjoyed spending time with the Young's in their hot tub and then spent the night at their house as all our stuff was finally packed :) If any of you (dear readers) get a chance to stay with the Young's, it is an experience you don't want to miss. There are not mints, but chocolates on the pillows, and underneath the bottom sheet on their guest room bed is a down feather thing that makes the bed so cozy like a nest. And who doesn't like relaxing in a hot tub?

Sunday, August 5th--
Went to church, enjoyed lunch with the Flickinger's, watered our flower garden one last time and went up to Camp Brotherhood for the Jr. Camp Fiesta kick-off dinner :)

Monday, August 6th--
D-Day. Or "get up and leave day". Or more like "get-woken-up-and-eat-breakfast-with-all-
your-friends-who-came-to-pray-for-you-and-see-you-off-as-you-leave-on-a-2000+-mile-
trip-day". Yes, we had told Robert and Mae "We'd like to leave between 7 and 8 AM" but the night before, we had stayed up, um.... kind of late enjoying their company, so we decided it was more important to sleep enough than to leave "on time". But 6:00 am Monday morning came, and so did Jessica, Alane, Julia, Tristan, Wayne, Cindy and Jenica. Mae and Robert had invited them all to have breakfast with us before we left. At 6:30 am when we still had not emerged from our guest room, Jessica came in and woke us up and Mae took pictures :) After a nice breakfast (which I was too excited to eat very much of) everyone prayed for us and sent us off. Who else do you know that gets too excited (about sitting in a car 24+ hours) to eat her favorite breakfast? We received several cards and gifts and we made ourselves wait until we got to I-90 to open/read them. We left at about 8:20 am and drove through Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Utah, Wyoming and finally into Colorado.
Our car did a great job for hauling a trailer. On some of the hills (okay, mountains) we went about 40 mph, and the rest of the highway driving, we never pushed over 60mph. We listened to dramatized Chronicles of Narnia, Adventures in Odyssey, and some music.

Tuesday, August 7th-- Mae and Robert loaded us up with lots of good food, so we didn't even want to stop for food until early Tuesday morning when we stopped at a Wendy's in Wyoming for breakfast (and enjoyed the sunrise).
We arrived at Grandma Richardson's farm in Wiggins CO at 10:20-something am (Pacific Time) 11:20-something am our time (26 hours driving time). After lunch with Grandma and a "short" nap (ended up to be almost 6 hours long) we enjoyed spending time with Brian's grandma and getting to know her better.

Wednesday, August 8th-- Spent the day with Grandma R. Brian and I went into town and got the oil changed in our car and sent some postcards and hung out in the grocery store (enjoying their air conditioner) while waiting for the car to get finished. When we got back to the farm, Grandma sent Brian out to the mower shed to check out a snake she found to see if it was a bull snake or a rattle snake.
I guess that the 2 kinds of snakes look the same except for the rattle (or lack thereof on a bull snake). Since it was a bull snake, Grandma said to let it live (so it could eat the mice). Anyway, we minded our own business and mowed the lawn.
The snake was still there when Brian put the mower away and Grandma put some water out for it. Some people have barn cats to eat mice. Other people have shed snakes. I really enjoyed getting to know Brian's grandma better and hearing fun stories about her eloping and her jobs and how the farm got started. That evening, Brian and I watched the sunset from on top of the silo and it was gorgeous. The pictures honestly don't do it justice. Colorado isn't called "colorful" for no reason.


Thursday, August 9th-- Now is when I should explain that losing a night of sleep really messed us up for figuring out what day it was. Brian's grandma asked me if I had any laundry I wanted to wash, and I said that I didn't have very much to wash, and would wait until Thursday to wash it. And then she had to inform me that it was Thursday. Everyday feels like Saturday right now :) When I got up, Brian and Grandma were rather distracted by a stray horse in the yard.
I was able to get close enough to it to figure out that it was a boy horse (stallion?), tame and take note of significant markings. Eventually (after calling several people who had no idea who owned the horse) 2 boys rode in on horses and tried to capture their stray horse. It took them a while, but they seemed to know what they were doing and they were fun to watch. After lunch, we drove about 3 hours down to Colorado Springs. We drove several miles on dirt roads and past acres and acres and acres of gorgeous yellow sunflowers :) After unsuccessfully taking pictures through the window, Brian pulled the car over and took some good pictures.


Something else about Colorado. There are these little things called "goat heads" (aka. thorny goatheads, prickers, tack burrs etc...) So I went to go stand next to a sunflower (get a good perspective shot ya know) and started feeling sharp little poky things all down on the sides of my feet. I think they should also be called attack burrs. Anyway, Brian (wearing his shoes rescued me and carried me the 3 feet I had walked out of the goatheads and back onto the dirt where girls wearing flip flops belong) and I could pick/scrape the rest of the sharp little buggers out of my flip flops without acquiring anymore every time I set my foot down. That was my adventure of the day :) We had dinner with Grandma Nelson and then went over to Laura and Steven's house (Brian's sister and brother-in-law) and had a blast on the trampoline with Stephanie (4) and Jennifer (2), relaxed in their hot tub and stayed up really late talking with Laura.

Friday, August 10th-- This morning we cleaned out the gutters at Grandma Nelson's house. They weren't that dirty, so it didn't take us very long, but it was a fun project to work on together.
We bought an air filter for the car and installed it and then headed over to Laura's and helped her with a "home improvement" project. Brian and Laura cut a huge hole in the bathroom ceiling to get rid of some black mold and I read Amelia Bedelia and a lot of other stories to Stephanie and Jennifer to keep them occupied (and I like Amelia Bedelia and reading stories).
The girls went to Steven's parents house for the night and we went out to dinner with Laura and Steven and came back home and watched a movie.

Saturday, August 11th-- Which brings us up today. We are planning on visiting Focus on the Family with Laura, maybe doing some shopping. After we sleep.


This is our schedule (Lord Willing) for the rest of our travel time.

Sunday, August 12th-- Go to church with Laura's family, drive back to Wiggins in the afternoon and spend the night at Grandma R's.

Monday, August 13th-- Hook up the trailer and drive to Salina, Kansas (app. 6 hours). Spend the night with Brian's Aunt Linda

Tuesday, August 14th-- Drive to Roach Missouri! (app. 5 hours)