Enfingers: Past & Future
THE PAST…
Retired! Now What?
by Dian Enfinger – 2008
When my husband, Lamar, retired from the Air Force after 22 years, he wanted to travel. He had the experience of living on a sailboat, flying through the hurricanes as a hurricane hunter and while waiting for me, his wife Dian, to retire, he was an over the road truck driver. As a military wife I had stayed home and took care of our three children, helped take care of my mom and worked. It was not always easy to be apart, but we both believed his job was important and this is a part of military life. We are proud to be a part of the Air Force and after 20 years, we are so thankful for the health benefits and good prices at the Commissary and Exchange. We also enjoy camping on the bases when we take a little time for ourselves to travel.
Lamar had, for years, promised me that he would take me traveling to see the places he had visited, and more, when he retired. Our first big trip was traveling to Alaska with a military caravan. That was a beautiful trip beyond words. We made many friends and began to travel here and there, but something was missing.
Lamar defended our country for over 20 years and still had the desire to help in some way to show how much our country means to us. We started praying and searching different areas that might need some help and came across an article in a travel magazine, MMAPers Needed: Mobile Missionaries Assistance Projects needs retired Christian couples to travel around the United States and help build camps, orphanages, churches, docks, and dormitories. Now, that sounded interesting to us. We contacted MMAP.org and learned that to be a part of this Christian organization you had to be a Christian, have your own RV, have health insurance and be able to support yourself. We qualified for all of this and decided to try it.
MMAP is a Christian organization that has four or five couples meet for the first three weeks of the month and join together to work on a project to improve the area or construct what is needed. There are churches, camps, ranches for teens and many more projects. The tasks are endless. We wanted to serve, build, and make a difference in the lives of others. Giving our time to serve the Lord in this capacity is what makes our lives blessed beyond words. Each time we go to a project we do not know exactly what we will be doing. We have an idea but, like in the military, you go and are ready to help in the best way you possibly know how.
Our first project with MMAP was with four other couples. We stayed at Vancleve, Kentucky at a Bible college. The men worked about 30 minutes away on dormitory and staff housing. The women worked on campus in the kitchen helping with meals, stained some boards, helped an elderly lady pack her belongings to move to another area and just enjoyed the college students. We loved hearing their laughter and listening to why they came to this college and what their plans were for the future. The ladies also got together and shared crafts that we had learned.
We enjoy our traveling and continuing to help others certainly makes a difference in our lives. We are now heading to our seventh project. We are going to Texas where there will be some logging for a new camp.
Our lives are full.
… THE FUTURE
August 2, 2015
Dear Burgess Road Baptist Church,
Lamar and I, Dian, are writing this letter to let you know that our missionary organization, MMAP, is closing down. MMAP, Mobile Missionary Assistant Program, started 37 years ago. Lamar and I felt led to be a part of this program in 2006. We have traveled many places, met many people and made lifetime friends. Even though lately we had not been able to participate because of my illness of Hemophilia, we were still waiting for the day we could travel again with them. In the month of June we were able to leave for three weeks and take a needed R&R and we went to Raccoon Mountain and there relaxed and met up with a friend we had not seen for around 20 years. We left there and went to the newest CBM (Children’s Bible Ministry) in Ozone, Tennessee. There Lamar worked outside with some of the cabins and did some tree work. I helped get some crafts prepared for campers coming in the next two weeks. We left there and then went to Elizabethton, Tennessee where the second CBM had started. Lamar did some repair work on some cabins. I worked in the office and helped with some paper work.
We completed 42 projects while in MMAP. 0ur prayer is to be able to work in Camp Grace in November which will be the last Project MMAP will have. It is sad to hear the news of MMAP’s closing, but headquarters has done all they could to keep MMAP open as long as possible.
We now plan to go as independent missionaries. We know of many camps that need volunteers and this is what is on our hearts now. We want to thank all of you for your support and most of all for your prayers during our journeys while in MMAP. Now we believe our Lord will have us continue the same kind of volunteering. There are camps that have offered to have us come back and help. I, Dian, am still on chemo once a month so in between, Lord willing, we plan to volunteer where our Lord leads us.
Proverbs3:5,6