NOMADS leave more than tire tracks

Traveling volunteers visit
McCamey, make 3 homes
more secure

By Claudia M. Williams
Staff Writer
When the recreational vehicles pulled out of McCamey last month, the travelers left little more in the campground than tire tracks. What they left behind in the small Upton County community is a different matter.
The RVers, United Methodists Debbie and Mark Ford and Jan and Jim Gee, left three McCamey homeowners safer, more secure and more comfortable places to live.
The work they did in McCamey was part of a United Methodist-affiliated ministry called NOMADS—or “Nomads on a Mission in Divine Service.”
NOMADS, usually retired couples with their own recreational vehicles, set up temporary residence in towns with needs for hard-working volunteers. After three weeks of sawing, hammering and caulking, they move on to the next town, to the next house in need of repair.
In McCamey, the Fords and Gees worked on three houses. The volunteers installed windows and doors, hung sheetrock, and replaced rotting boards on porches. Their work made houses handicap-accessible and more.
“They (the NOMADS) go into a house and see the desperate condition,” said the Rev. Earl Richardson, pastor of First UMC, McCamey. “They see how people live. They are drawn to making a difference in their lives. That’s how God has called them.”
Work projects often aid older people or people with disabilities. In some communities, NOMADS work with human services departments to identify people who don’t qualify for assistance programs and don’t have the resources to make repairs themselves.
In McCamey, the Ministerial Alliance identified homeowners in need.
One was an 87-year-old woman who had lived in her house for 70 years.
“There was a lot of work that needed to be done after all that time,” Richardson said. “Her husband was a fisherman, not a handyman.”
The woman, who is now a widow, had boards over broken windows.
“She couldn’t replace windows when they broke,” Richardson said.
Replacing her windows was just one repair the NOMADS did. They also fixed a porch and rerouted water lines so the porch wouldn’t be damaged again.
Richardson, who has served the 103-member McCamey congregation since 2004, said he was surprised that NOMADS had never before come to his West Texas community and that people in the San Angelo District knew nothing about them.
Richardson had worked with NOMADS before. He said the NOMADS are “the best kept secret in The United Methodist Church.”
The ministry offers people with recreational vehicles the opportunity to use their time to work on repair projects in private homes, churches, camps and mission agencies. NOMADS also help in disaster response. Volunteers—and those who benefit from their work—do not have to be United Methodists.
Richardson said NOMADS are usually retired people who travel from northern states when winter comes. That prompted his lighted-hearted definition of the acronym, “Nice Old Methodists Avoiding Deep Snow.”
During the three weeks they spend in a community, NOMADS work four days, then relax for three. Typically, they serve in a unit of two, a married couple.
The volunteers bring their own tools. Churches provide materials to make the repairs. In McCamey the Ministerial Alliance donated nearly $3,000 worth of lumber, sheetrock and other supplies. The city provided a place to set up RVs.
“They plugged in at a park,” Richardson said. “The community provided the hookup.”
If the NOMADS don’t have experience in the basic repairs they need to make, Richardson said, “they learn as they go.
“They found gas leaks in two houses,” he said. “Those they don’t repair. They call someone who can.”
The volunteers who came to McCamey are full-time RVers.
“They’ve been on the road four years,” Richardson said. “They don’t have a house. They have a mailing address somewhere. Somebody bags up their mail and sends it to them.”
The McCamey project was the Gees’ sixth and the Fords’ 26th—although all have retired just within the last five years. The Gees hail from Sachse, Texas. The Fords are from Ohio.
Richardson said he is asking the NOMADS ministry to send volunteers for two three-week periods next year.
“One couple said if they can work it out, they’ll be back,” he said. The other has other commitments lined up.
“In three weeks, they’ve made life better,” Richardson said. “People have windows they can see out of now that don’t leak and doors that open and shut.”