Do You Listen to God’s Still Small Voice? (It Saved Us from a Hurricane)
I prayed about our destination and knew we needed to change our plans.
In March of 2024, we were thrilled to purchase a lifetime lease for our permanent site in the Roving Volunteers in Christ’s Service Village in Smithville, Texas. Over a year earlier, we became volunteers for RVICS and worked on our first project in Keystone Heights, Florida. Giving back in our senior years through this wonderful organization gave us purpose after idly roaming about the country for over two years.
I’ll share a brief description of RVICS for my readers unaware of what the organization does. Since projects last for three weeks at a time, almost all of us are retirees. We go to Christian Camps and work on their punch list of repairs and maintenance so they will be prepared for the onslaught of kids fortunate enough to enjoy a week at camp. We do everything from painting and cleaning to installing spiral staircases and adding RV sites with full hookups.
It’s been rewarding in many ways.
When we discovered we could buy a site in their village, it was the icing on the cake. After securing our spot in March, we headed to Alabama for an appointment to repair the front awning on our motorhome. From there, we headed north to Nebraska for an RVICS assignment at the Timberlake Ranch. After three weeks of working and playing with another awesome group of people, we headed to Michigan for an RVICS reunion.
Because we had plenty of time to get to the reunion, we decided to experience the Upper Peninsula. This post describes some of our experiences there. Anniversary in Michigan & Ohio Surprises (RV Life Ain’t Boring)
As God’s timing always does, the trip allowed us to help reignite a Campers for Christ chapter in Wisconsin afterward. Our original plan after leaving there was to stay in New York for three weeks, visiting the wonderful friends we made in Florida who live there in the spring and summer months.
After that, we were supposed to go to North Carolina for a rally with the Campers for Christ Acts Chapter, which covers five states (KY-NC-SC-TN-VA-WV). Tommy kept in touch with the chapter president and was going to help with worship at their rally.
Before we even got to New York, I strongly felt we should spend less time there, skip the North Carolina rally, and attend the C4C Regional Chapter Rally in Texas. I had a strong desire to return to our home state.
I was concerned about getting our absentee ballots from South Dakota, our domicile state, in time to vote early. The political climate and uncertainty surrounding it made me feel like we needed to head back long before the original November date on our calendar.
I prayed a lot about it before mentioning it to my husband. He is a man of his word, and I knew he didn’t want to let down the president of the Acts Chapter. I told God that if it was His voice speaking to me and not my own, He needed to open Tommy’s heart to the idea. ❤️ 🙏
When I finally brought up my change of plans, my husband agreed that it made a lot of sense. We would save a lot of money on RV sites and fuel, and he could participate with a worship team he played guitar with at previous rallies.
Instead of hanging out on the East Coast for over a month before the North Carolina rally, we had a little over three weeks to make the 1600-mile trip to the Grapeland, Texas, C4C rally. We could also tie in a visit with my brother and his lovely wife and some friends we have in Tennessee.
Little did we know we would avoid being in the middle of a hurricane that ravaged North Carolina.
But God knew. He put the change of plans in my heart and affirmed to my husband that it was a great idea. We were due to arrive in NC at the end of September.
When the horrendous storm made landfall on September 26th, we were comfortably at home in Smithville, Texas. We were with a wonderful group of friends praying for the folks in the storm’s path instead of sitting in the storm’s path praying that we would survive. God has worked so many miracles in our lives that I can’t count them.
My goal is to one day chronicle them in a book. It will take a lot of time to go back through my journals and flesh them out, but it won’t be as challenging as writing a book while running a bar and grill full-time. Let’s hope this one doesn’t take seven years to write.
You can find my book Born Again in a Biker Bar on Amazon.
We’ve been back in Smithville for almost three weeks, and I have a lot of great stuff to share with you, but I’ll save it for my next post. In the meantime, I hope I’ve inspired you to reflect on how many times God stepped in and saved you from something. I wish I’d written them all down in a praise journal as they happened. It would make putting my book together a lot easier.
I’ve got one now and plan to write in it often. The miracles keep coming.
Have a blessed day, and thank you for sharing your time with me.
Charisse Tyson is a retired biker bar owner, author, blogger, and full-time RVer. You can follow her on Substack, Facebook, Linkedin, X(Twitter)