Summer Edition 2018

Dear Family and Friends,

Greetings from our camper in Franklin, NC, our new home! We purposely skipped over the first day of summer to send this edition of MountainView Moments, so we could give you a better update on all that has happened over the last month. It has been a whirlwind of activity with lots of work, endings, good-byes, and new beginnings. But we are so BLESSED to have it all behind us and are thrilled to be starting on our next assignment. REFIREMENT! (That’s not a typo. We are fired up!)

Jeannie has been packing since January, and every weekend we took our old Macs trailer full of belongings to storage in Franklin. Even so, the last month held much left to do. We took a quick trip to Cincy, OH, to deliver a few family heirlooms to Jeannie’s niece, Amy. The secretary pictured here belonged to their Aunt Henrietta, who passed it on to Jeannie many years ago. (Sisters, Henrietta and Irma Jean are characters in Jeannie’s first book, Dawn of Day.) 

Jeannie decided it was time to pass it on again. Jeannie’s Uncle Lindy (Happy 90th Birthday soon!) was visiting her cousin Jill in KY, and they joined us. Lilly is on her Author Youth Advisory Board, and they talked a little Tresia, and discovered we have many cheerleaders in the family!

We won’t go into all the moving details, but we did it mostly ourselves, so lots of stories! We hired help to clean out the last of the furniture, boxes, and bins at the Hickory house. It took them two hours. It took us eight hours to unload the 20-foot U-haul, plus we had a locking the keys in the U-haul incident besides. The glitch was we couldn’t get everything in the 20-footer. So after unloading the U-haul to storage in Franklin, we took Sunday off and returned with another U-haul trailer to get the rest on Monday. Our house in Hickory is up for sale, so please pray with us for a quick and easy sale. Since we took our time unloading, Jeannie knows where everything is in storage, so that is a good thing, though it was a very long day! The trailer took less time, and no keys to worry about, just HEAVY bins from our basement. After a week, almost everything is in its place here and in storage. Thanks to our friend from Cherokee Bible Church, Robert, our new to us GMC Sierra truck, which was such a God-send for our move, and our Macs trailer are now parked in the lot next door to our camper. The trailer is our walk-in closet! We still have Stacie’s KIA Sportage for touring around the mountains and it fits in front of the camper. Our campground owner, Erin, has been wonderful allowing us to use two spaces. If you are ever in the Franklin, NC, area, Mi Mountain Campground is a great place to stay, and we can be neighbors for a while!

As draining physically as the move from Hickory to Franklin was, we kept these two scriptures in our minds and mouths and they made all the difference! "The joy of the Lord is my strength,"; and "I shall run and not be weary and walk and not faint."; Every time we felt like we couldn’t lift one more bin or box or piece of furniture, out came those verses and we carried on. We proved that if you work the Word, the Word works!

Dennis officially retired from Catawba County Schools on June 28. He enjoyed several retirement celebrations with fellow teachers and administrators. No doubt, teaching was his calling, whether music, counseling, or coaching.

He's enjoyed reading comments and cards sent by former faculty and students that testify to that fact. Since leaving his school office for the last time, he has kept busy helping Jeannie organize the storage and things around camp and cleaning the camper from three years of weekend use. We still have to move things from our first smaller storage unit, so that will keep us busy for a while. They will be divided between a bigger and newer unit and our new barn, the first building on our property!

Jeannie finished writing Book III in her Tresia series before she packed up her computer. We now have internet at camp, her laptop is set up, and she will be working with her illustrator and has begun the editing process needed before sending it to her publisher. The plan is for The Perfectly Magnificent Cane to be released in late October or early November. This is the final book in the Trinity Tales of Tresia series. The next issue of MountainView Moments will give you release information, or you can always check her website for updates and much more. And please know that though this series is for upper middle-grade, many adults have read and enjoyed it, especially those who have kids or grandkids that they pray for.

Jeannie has curtailed her blog, Alliteration A la Mode, (which is in the same format as her former Facebook posts, but now available to anyone on the website,) to once a month instead of once a week. So if you want to have her blog delivered to your email once a month, as well as this newsletter twice a year, (a Spring/Summer Edition and a Harvest/Holiday Edition,) you can sign up for either or both on the website. You must sign up separately for her blog, even if this edition of the MM newsletter came to your inbox because you are already on that mailing list.

Speaking of MM, now you know what our email address stands for, Macs MountianView Ministries. Thanks to the generous help of one of Jeannie's writer friends, Gwen, we were able to keep our email addresses even though Charter does not reach Franklin. So, the only thing that has changed is our mailing address, and we have no home phone now. Be sure to make note of the contact info below. We want to stay in touch. And we are always happy to hear back from you when you read the newsletter.

We aren't sure how long we will be here at the campground, but we are looking forward to our next and final earthly address on the property of our new ministry. We couldn't get a house number until we obtain a building permit, so the campground address is temporary. Phase I of our vision is moving the camper to the land as soon as the driveway, electric, well, and septic, is in place. And there will be a second RV spot for guests! Phase II is Ruby Cabin, a ministry cabin where we will live for a while, but will still be available for guests. We will just move back to the camper for spell if you visit! The walk-out basement under Ruby Cabin will become Macs Music Recording Studio. Dennis is really looking forward to this new assignment and working toward it by writing new songs and studying the recording business. In the mean time he has decided to put coaching on hold, and go into officiating basketball and volleyball to keep up with his love of sports and kids.

Phase III is our new home, Sapphire Lodge. We'll save the details of what else this home will be for another edition. If you have read Jeannie's Tresia books, you will recognize the names Ruby Cabin and Sapphire Lodge. She wrote those into her story before we knew that our property would be on Ruby Mine Creek. We believe it was a God-thing. He cares about every detail of our lives, and we stand on the promise that they "work together for our good when we are called according to his purpose"; God gave us this vision for Macs MountainView Ministries, and He is bringing it to pass step by step. To God be the Glory!

Love and prayers,
Dennis and Jeannie

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Dennis & Jeannie
193 Mi Mountain Rd
Franklin, NC 28734

[email protected]
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www.jamcphail.com