A nomadic life may conjure images of aimlessly traveling with no sense of destination. For lifelong United Methodists Tammy and Rodney Ripley, who have been NOMADS for several years, their lives are far from aimless and destinations are denomination-related churches, camps and other sites where the couple joins fellow retirees to offer hope in the way of construction and other general repairs.
Guests: Rodney and Tammy Ripley
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This episode posted on March 15, 2024.
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Transcript
Prologue
A nomadic life may conjure images of aimlessly traveling with no sense of destination. For lifelong United Methodists Tammy and Rodney Ripley, who have been NOMADS for a number of years, their lives are far from aimless and destinations are denomination-related churches, camps and other sites where the couple joins fellow retirees to offer hope in the way of construction and other general repairs.
Crystal Caviness, host: Rodney and Tammy, welcome to “Get Your Spirit in Shape.”
Tammy Ripley, guest: Thank you.
Rodney Ripley, guest: Thank you.
Crystal: I'm glad to have you here. Today we're going to talk about just kind of what you're doing on the road as NOMADS are going to explain what that word means and what it looks like for you. But before we jump into that, tell me a little bit about yourselves.
Tammy: My name's Tammy Ripley and I’m a retired instrumental music teacher. I've been a member of The United Methodist Church since I was born and we actually still attend the same church. I was born in Gaithersburg, Maryland, and we love doing NOMADS. It's retirement with a purpose and we were looking before we retired at something we could do, the way we could serve and we love to travel in our RV and we found that worked well for us.
Rodney: Hello, I'm Rodney Ripley. I was a computer engineer for over 33 years and really wanted to give back. When I was younger and our boys were going through scouts, we did a lot of volunteering, but we got busy and as Tammy said, we wanted to have a way to give back, and NOMADS was a wonderful opportunity and it got us outside. I was in an office for so long. Being outside doing stuff and serving the Lord is great.
Crystal: I read an article last night unrelated to this that talked about how important it is for us to spend time outside, that eons ago people spent 90% of their time outside because their livelihoods required that, and now we tend to spend 90% of our time inside and where there's actually something inside of us that yearns to be outside in nature and feel a connection to that. I really didn't even mean to go down that road, but you mentioned that Rodney, and I mean, do you feel that when you're outside doing this work?
Rodney: Yeah, I mean it's an amazing opportunity to travel different parts of the country and to go work at a church or a church camp and serve the Lord and meet so many people and develop so many wonderful long lasting relationships because we've been to many places and we keep in contact with many of the people we've served or worked with in the past and through NOMADS. So it's just been a blessing that way.
Crystal: It seems like it's really that United Methodist connection as you're going to all the different churches and I realize we've jumped right in. I'm going to just give a one sentence. NOMADS is a, as you said, it's retirement with a purpose and you travel around to different sites, usually United Methodist churches or camps or something affiliated with the church and you do projects there usually repair or sometimes it's, well you tell me what kinds of things do you do?
Tammy: So back to your question about the outdoors, some of our favorite places to go are the church camps because they have great places for us to camp ourselves and then we're out. Most of our projects are in the outdoors at that point. We might be inside a building for a little part of the day. But yeah, the connections is what makes it all, but the connection with nature is part of it and we have the weekends off to tour the area. We started this winter up in Crystal River, Florida, and it's the nature coast and we took the weekends to go to all the different springs around and all the different state parks and then we were down in Homestead and we got to go down to the Dry Tortugas National Park. But then the connections we built along the way ,we stop and visit people on the way there. We stopped at a guy's house that we worked on after Hurricane Irma and we've kept in contact with him and we went and stopped and visited him on the way down to the Florida Keys. So connections are the best part.
Rodney: We do all kinds of work. We do construction, basic carpentry work, we do some plumbing. It's pretty much whatever they have for us to do and we have the skills to do. We don't usually get into heavy electrical stuff, but if things require inspections and things like that, we go through those. But we do a little bit of everything kind of work inside outside. It's just a way to be outside in the fresh air.
Tammy: We’re sitting at a church right now, but the work we've done the past week is at a lady's home. The lady's not even a member of this church. She has a connection to somebody at this church, but she's got a mobile home and she was falling through the floors of her mobile home and this guy found out about it and said, oh, the NOMADS are coming, could we do this? And that's what we've spent the week. We probably have another two or three days at her house to finish up because it was a bigger project than they thought it was going to be as we started tearing it up. But the churches, we have a combination here for the three weeks we're here. We have a combination of working at the church and we've got three different, four different households if we have time that we're going to go out and work in those households.
So it's another way to spread God's love, not just helping the church. And a lot of times if we're working at a church, we're freeing them up to do their outreach and we personally pick the churches that have the best outreach, whether it's us helping with the outreach or us helping them do what needs done at their church so they can do the outreach. If we're not doing church camps, that's our other way to pick and we like to become involved in the church while we're here where we join the choir. We're going to be part of the special music on Sunday. We were the part of the special music two weeks ago down in Homestead, so we like to become part of the church while we're here as best we can.
Crystal: I love that you get involved in the community. You're not just popping, I mean you might be popping in, but you're also meeting the people there and you're part of the church life for those two to three weeks while you're on site. Tell me where are you today?
Tammy: Today we're in Central Florida at Sparr United Methodist Church and talking about joining the congregations, we worked twice at Zion United Methodist Church in Ocala, Florida, which is only 20 minutes from where we are right now, in 2017 and 2019 and we've kept in contact with three of the couples there and last night there's a group of NOMADS over there working right now and we planned to go over and we played games last night, but we also planned it for Thursday night when we knew it was choir rehearsal. So we went over early and popped into the choir rehearsal and they acted like we had never been gone. I mean they right away, oh, the Ripleys are here. They welcomed us and gave us hugs and wanted to include us again. We always figured it's a successful project when they ask us if we're ready to relocate, that they want us to be there at the church.
Crystal: They just adopt you and bring you right in.
Tammy: Absolutely
Rodney: Right. It's so neat that some projects, we have this work at the church or other parsonage to do whatever needs to be done and then we do these community outreaches. It's an opportunity to get out. A lot of NOMADS like to work in people's homes. We saw the need when we walked in this lady's home this week with the floor falling through in this mobile home and we ended up tearing it all apart, but it was good and we had an opportunity to serve. But also we always say that the work isn't the most important thing. We want to get it done and do the best we can, but if we need to sit down and just listen to them because they need to have an ear to listen to what's going on in their life, we do that. God provides, the work gets done. It always does.
Tammy: The hard part working on this lady's floor this week is it's noisy where you use an oscillating tools and sanders and it's noisy. It's hard to talk to her while we're working. The first two days she seemed like she was glad we were there, but then the third day she was put off, we were really in her way type thing. So I prayed yesterday morning at devotions, help us to cut through to this lady and help us to show her why we're there and show our love through what we're doing. And there happened to be a time where I was done with what I was doing and Rodney and one of the other ladies were figuring out solutions to how to get under her cabinet and shore them up and I went over and sat down and got to talk to her and we talked for 30 to 45 minutes and her whole demeanor changed When we left yesterday, she couldn't say enough, have a great weekend, God bless you.
She was just so thankful and because I had taken that time to sit and hear her story and I told her stories also so we shared stories. She was a good listener and it was a great time and we tried to do that as much. It's hard because you want to get the work done, you're there to work and you want to get the work done, but I love when we can get to that point where we can talk with the people we're working with and get to know them. She'll be added to our Christmas card list now.
Crystal: As I hear you talking about that, what you're talking about is ministry. So tell me how is this ministry for you? You're retired, you could go out and be doing, I don't know, you could do a lot of things with your time, but this is what you're choosing to do. Tell me about why you're doing that. Why is this important for you?
Tammy: We feel like we're really blessed to retire early and we've just always had the drive to give back and we feel it's a calling for the both of us. We were at a campground probably 10 years before we retired and we were talking to a couple that were in a different organization through a different faith and similar, similar though. And we were like that's what we want to do, we got to find this. Then it happened. There's this Motor Home magazine that came out with a list of all the serving organizations. There was one that was Methodist. We're like, there's a Methodist organization like this. We both grew up United Methodist, so we looked it up and it was just the best fit for us. Now obviously not everybody in the group is United Methodist, but we share that as best we can and we definitely feel like it's a calling. And when we're back at church, we'll do a talk at least once a year about the most current projects we did, what we did and how we shared.
Rodney: Yeah, it's all about giving back again. We were very, very blessed. We have two wonderful boys and all through growing up we tried to do and set a good witness, a good example. And this was just another way and also just because we had an opportunity to travel in our RV and still serve the Lord and do stuff that to help others was just really, really cool. And then there's so many beautiful areas across the country to go to. We have projects all over the place so you get an opportunity to go to different places and serve a church or a church camp or whatever and just help them and see the beautiful country.
Tammy: The other real advantage is the skills we're learning because these were not, we both had a little bit of skills. We're not the generation that was a jack of all trades. We're the younger, a lot of the NOMADS are, we're not. So we're learning from them. And at first my parents didn't quite understand, what are you doing? Why are you doing this? You could just be out traveling, having a good time. And then my dad realized as we came home, the more skills and the more confidence we had. Then he's like, yeah, go on some more projects. I got some stuff for you to do when you get back. In fact, after we get back this time, Rodney's mother has a small fence that she needs. We repaired it at Thanksgiving time, but we told her what to buy and we're going to go up and repair her fences and even our own stuff in our RV, something will go wrong. We would've normally quickly tried to find a shop to get it in and get it fixed. Now we look it up and try to figure out how to do it ourselves or we know how to do it because it's something we've done on a project. So that's really cool too. And our kids are learning to do things on their own because they saw that we have the confidence to figure out how to do it, not just call a prepare person in to do it.
Rodney: So we haven't said, but NOMAD stands for Nomads on a Mission Active in Divine Service. That's the acronym. Acronym for what we do and stuff. There's a funny name for it too. I don't know if that's something you want to hear, but it is Northern Old Methodists avoiding deep snow. So the thing is we gravitate to the warmer climates in the wintertime and then we gravitate further north as the weather changes. So we have projects in Alaska, Montana, Maine, all over the place so we can serve at all times throughout the year. We have NOMADS that work project after project that are full times that live in our RV. We do multiple projects a year, but we're not doing a project after project after project, but the opportunities we have to serve works and we still get to travel and then see our grandkids and stuff too. It's just a perfect match for us.
Crystal: When I went to the website, the very first thing on the NOMADS website, and we'll link to that on our episode page, it says it has a verse from James, James 2:17 that says, faith, if not accompanied by action is dead. Tell me about how that resonates with you in the work that you're doing through NOMADS.
Rodney: We always say that actions speak louder than words and going out into the community, going into places where there's need and helping, that's what we're called to do. Christ said we need to help others. And we do that by going to these churches and then doing it like the community outreach that we're doing or supporting the church or church camp so that they can do the mission that they are they have because our youth today, there's some amazing camps out there. We need to get them out there and having facilities that the kids will enjoy and keep coming back and have an opportunity to see God's creation and get some faith-based stuff going on as well. So it's just an opportunity. And that action speaks louder than your words.
Crystal: You talked about how you've really upped your game as far as repair and those kinds of skills. How has this affected your faith? How has this affected your relationship with God?
Tammy: It’s definitely strengthened it. Every morning we start with a devotion and we take turns the people on the team doing the devotion and we learn so much through that. And I didn't used to be a person that would pray out loud around other people. And even just yesterday, I feel like I came into it even better yesterday than I ever have. I'd usually do the devotion and say, Rodney, you do the prayer for me. So it's definitely helped with my prayer life, but it's helped definitely deep in our relationship we see other people and other people's relationships. The other NOMADS we work with, the other, the churches, the most spirit filled worship I've ever been to is here at this church at Sparr United Methodist Church and we were here two years ago and we just had to sign up and come back. We just loved it so much and we came early enough that we could be there on Sunday because our work didn't start till Monday and I just sat in there and said, yes, this is where we were meant to be. It was just perfect.
Rodney: Yeah, it is just an opportunity spirit built. I said it earlier, the relationships that we've built with others has strengthened our relationship with Christ as well. We just have friends at these churches, friends, NOMADS. We have people all across the country and we had a situation recently in our family where we needed prayer. We put it on the NOMADS Sunshine prayer list and within minutes of it going out, we had emails coming back from NOMADS throughout our organization and around the country giving prayers for our family. When we had this situation, it was just amazing how quickly within minutes from going out, we got dozens people responding.
Tammy: Some we knew and some we didn't know. They would just sign their name and put NOMAD.
Rodney: So I mean it's caring organization. It's really wonderful.
I'd like to take a break from our conversation with Tammy and Rodney Ripley to tell you about a unique career, one that you may never heard of, but one you'll likely never forget. The career is house parenting at Milton Hershey School in Hershey, Pennsylvania. Milton Hershey School is one of the world's best private schools where students from disadvantaged backgrounds receive an exceptional education with all cost covered. Each student from pre-K through 12th grade lives on campus in a home with other children of the same gender and age, managed by a married couple who cares for their daily needs and teaches skills. While it's important you feel called to this role, it's not a volunteer position. Couples receive a combined pre-tax salary of more than $85,000, a private apartment, meals, utilities, and a comprehensive benefit package. House parents are critical to how Milton Hershey School fulfills its mission to provide opportunity, safety, and stability for the children who need it most. If you're a married couple with a heart for children, Milton Hershey School invites you to discover your next chapter. Learn more at mhskids.org/house parents. Now, let's return to our conversation with the Ripleys.
Crystal: I've said a lot that I think that people inside the church know that there is in the best situation, there's a community, the church is a community. It can be like a family, and I know not everyone has had positive experiences in church. I'm not trying to gloss over those harmful places, but it does sound, it sounds like here that it is a community of people who care about one another and love one another, and so it really is an extension of what's happening in what we might think of as a traditional church setting. But it sounds like church.
Rodney: Yeah. I mean, we get involved. We have our devotions, we get involved with the church that we're at. We've worked with a lot of people, but there are people we have never worked with that we know are praying for us if we need it. And it is a faith community in and of itself. And then the relationships, I keep coming back to that relationships with others, with Christ, with ourselves and our, it just really is that blessing.
Tammy: And we have something called the annual meeting. It's like our conference for the year and September and obviously not all 715 NOMADS show up, but the ones that do, it's just like a big family reunion. The first one we went to, I got there and my head was spinning. I didn't know how these people that we worked with in Massachusetts knew these people that we worked with in Texas and knew these people that we worked with in Indiana and how did they, and it was just crazy. But now we're used to it, but we have a choir. I direct the choir at the annual meeting and last night when we went over to play games, there was a couple there that we didn't think we knew and he says, oh yeah, I know you directed the choir back in Memphis in 2019. I was like, yeah. He says, I was in the choir that year. We had like 50 some in the choir, so I didn't get to know them all three rehearsals in a concert. But there's people that we've worked with through annual meeting that we've never worked with at a project, but we already know them because of annual meeting. We've either sang with them or we work with the auction with them. We do a live auction and a silent auction.
Rodney: The internal fundraising.
Tammy: So there's more people that they might only work on the west coast and we don't get out there as often as we do the east coast. So we know them, but we've not worked a project with them and one day hopefully we will. But the other day it was really cool. Somebody that we had worked with in Mississippi last year texted us and said, oh, there's a new project on the website in Washington State. I think you'd love it. It's Warm Beach Camp. It's a youth camp. So he was going to lead the project and he wanted us to be on the project with them. Didn't work into our schedule, but it was nice that he asked. It was really cool.
Crystal: Is there a single story from each of you that just kind of seared in your memory of Oh my goodness, this is either the most challenging situation we've ever gotten ourselves into or maybe one of the most memorable for other reasons?
Rodney: So for me, I was very hesitant about becoming a team leader, and we have been now for a long time, but I was a computer engineer. I didn't do construction stuff. I didn't have those skills. Well, we always have found that God provides someone on our team that knows how to do whatever it's we need to do. So we got to a project and it had some pretty heavy duty construction going on, and I was a little concerned. We had to go and figure out how much supplies and stuff we needed and I could have done it but it would've taken me a lot longer. Well, there was a guy that was on our project who knew this stuff and before we knew it Sunday after church, we usually went to church together and then we said, do you mind Steve if we take a look around what we're going to be doing on starting out on Monday?
He said, no, no problem. Nothing to it. When you got the right people, God provided that we got it done. So as a team leader, I don't have to know everything because God provides period. Same project. This church we're going to Barnett Church starting to develop a youth program and they really needed their Sunday school rooms on the upper floor, spruced up and gotten prepared so they could have Sunday school up there and they had done the best they could with what they had and what their abilities could do, and they were just praying that someone could come and help them out. Well, we were supposed to be on another project and we got pulled off last minute because of certain situations and we led this project and we were, the answer to these guys is prayers. We came in and we took care of the whole upstairs, we painted, we put in new ceilings, we did repairs, we got the upstairs ready. Most of the people in the congregation couldn't even walk up the steps. It was an older community, but there was still a younger contingent, if you will, that were there and they needed it to be updated. So we did that. So it was just like amazing. God provides period, end of statement.
Crystal: That is a simple statement that we could just, if we just keep it as a mantra, it would probably help us not have as much stress and angst in our lives. Just having the faith that God will provide for sure.
Rodney: Yep.
Crystal: Tammy, how about you? Do you have a story?
Tammy: It's so hard to pick one. There's so many. I'll go with the most recent. We were last year in a church in Texas sent in Methodist church, and again, they have a great outreach, but they have a volunteer village area. It used to be their Sunday school classrooms, but they've changed it into this big dorm areas, dorm rooms, and they use it if youth groups want to come and be close to the beach in Texas, they can rent out rooms or if there's a disaster happens, it's a place for the disaster relief team to come stay in these rooms. And they had these two old pianos that were just taking up space upstairs. They could not get rid of them, nobody would take 'em. Nobody would even just salvage them for them. They didn't know what they were going to do with these big pianos.
They were upstairs, so you couldn't just carry them downstairs. You'd have to have a crane or something. So we were leading the project and at five in the morning, on the second to last day of the three week project, Rodney wakes up, what are you doing on the phone? I said, I'm looking up how to take those pianos apart for them. So I found a YouTube that told us how to take apart a piano, and we went in and we talked to the trustee, the liaison between us and I said, would you be okay with us taking those pianos apart? He had a big trailer. I said, we can put all the wood on your trailer. He said, oh yeah, I can take that and burn that. I said, then we can separate all the metal and you can take and get money for that metal. He's like, if you think you can do it, I said, well, we only have two days left. I think we could probably get one taken apart, but maybe not both, but if you're okay with it, we're going to do it. So one of the other couples said, we'll do it with you, we'll help you. So you can't just cut the strings, you got to wind them down with the drill, otherwise they'll fly up and cut you.
Rodney: Because they're under great tension.
Tammy: So part of it was just pounding on it and breaking it apart. Other parts were finding the right screws to pull it apart, but you really learned as an instrumental music teacher, it was kind of like, oh, I don't know if I want to take a sacred instrument apart. But we learned so much about the makings of the instrument as we took it apart and us and the other couple. Then when we get to the big soundboard left, the other guys on the team would come help get it carried out very heavy. We finished the first one by noon that day and finished the other one in the afternoon that day. So we got two pianos taken apart. So now we add want to add to our skills list. We can take apart pianos. We were at our project in Crystal River, they had a piano they wanted to dump. I was like, well, we know how to take it apart. Let us take it apart. And they're like, oh no, we called the dump and they'll take it. And it wasn't upstairs, so it was easy to put on a trailer and they took it to the dump, but I was disappointed. It was just a neat thing that we had never done before and we learned how to do and learned about it and it freed up space then for their volunteer village.
Crystal: Tammy, I'm going to just go ahead and caution you when the word gets out that you know how to take apart pianos, it's going to be a full-time gig for you. You're going to be traveling all over the places because we do hear, I mean working for The United Methodist Church, we get a lot of people just calling and saying, do you know? And it's surprising the people who will call and say, do you know who would come and take this old piano? So just beware. The calls are going to start coming in.
Rodney: These pianos were built, the one for sure was like 1938 or something, and it had a price on it of $495. I mean, that was probably lots of money.
Tammy: They weren't playable anymore.
Rodney: But it was just amazing that we got it apart. And the soundboards on the bigger one probably weighed 300 pounds. We had three guys have to carry it down the steps. There was second floor down some seep steps. It's like, yeah, really cool.
Crystal: You may think you're doing construction, but you're really just problem solving.
Rodney: Yeah.
Tammy: A lot of it is puzzles.
Rodney: That was the way it was with flooring we’re doing this week. Because this lady's home, there's some damage here and there, but we're trying to figure out how to support her cabinet so they don't fall through the floor because we're stepping through the floor.
Tammy: We don’t know how her refrigerator didn't fall through the floor already.
Rodney: So we shored up and we've got a way to get some two by fours underneath there to hold it up a little bit.
Tammy: When we were here last two years ago at Sparr, we alternate coming to Florida every other year. That's why it was two years ago. We worked on a lady's back deck. Her husband had died and her deck was falling apart. She was using a walker and the walker wouldn't go up the ramp. It wasn't wide enough. So we helped her with her deck or we built her deck every morning when we would get there to work, she'd have a handwritten note thanking us, blessing us everything. Sometimes pictures on it and everything. Well after the first week that following Monday, we're sitting in our devotions here at the church and one of the ladies says that was working on it with us. That deck's strong enough for an elephant. Now that's strong enough for an elephant. We get there that day and the card that the lady had written for us had a picture of an elephant standing on her deck and she was not at those devotions. And there's so many stories like that we could go on all day long with our stories.
Crystal: It sounds like that you are showing up and you're not just bringing power tools, but you're bringing hope.
Tammy: Absolutely.
Rodney: Yes, definitely.
Crystal: I mean, I'm just thinking about this woman that you're working in her home now and it's making her home safe for her to live in.
Tammy: The funny thing is her name is Hope.
Rodney: That's true.
Crystal: I love that. Well, as we finish up, is there anything that you wanted to share that we haven't yet talked about?
Tammy: No. Just when we're home, we do have a home church and we are involved in the volunteering there and everybody just knows. In fact, we just had a mission seminar right before we left and we were able to put up brochures and sound sign boards about the NOMADS and everything. Everybody knows and wants to hear about our projects when we get home and wants to share, but we like to do the Lord's table at home and things like that. So it's hard to be away from our church, but it's easier knowing that we're sharing part of our church with every church we go to.
Crystal: Yeah, that's a great way to put that. Well, I will now ask you the question we ask all of our guests on “Get your Spirit in Shape,” and I'd love for each of you to answer the question of how you keep your own spirit in shape.
Tammy: For me, it's started with another NOMAD started it, so I won't take all the credit, but we were on a project together and at the very first meeting, this lady was just cutting up at the meeting. She was giving the leader a hard time. I didn't realize they knew each other from before, and we went back to our RVs. I said, I don't know how I'm going to work with this lady for three weeks. She's going to drive me crazy. Turned out we were best buddies. We had the best time. We really got along. When the project was over, I get a text from her and it's just a red heart. So I write back and I send a red heart and I write what's going on, and she says, oh no, that's just to tell you. I'm thinking about you. So every project we go to at one of the devotions, I'll tell everybody, if you get a red heart for me, it's just telling you I'm thinking about you.
And I've even done it with people we've met on. We like to cruise people we've met on cruise ships. One lady lost her husband. I'll send her a heart and she'll write back, I can't believe you did this today. This would've been our anniversary. And the hearts just show up at the right time, and if they have a need to talk, they know I'm available. I just sent them this heart and they'll text me back something. Sometimes it's just a heart comes back. Sometimes we'll go back and forth with how many hearts we can send each other, but that's the way. That's something that I do a card ministry. I like to send cards out, but the heart, so that text something easy, but yet lets 'em know we're I'm thinking about them.
Crystal: It sounds like you're a giver, Tammy.
Tammy: Yes. I hope to be.
Rodney: Mine is just that I've worked in an office for so long, I always wanted to get outside. I love to mow my lawn and things like to be outside. So when we're driving across the country and seeing the beauty that God has created, and if you haven't driven across the United States in a car, you'll not know what I mean. But there is beauty, every state we've been in, and I just enjoy, it fills my spirit up just to see the beauty that's out there and then knowing that when we get there, we're going to either be on a project or maybe we're just doing our own vacationing. It's beautiful and we have an opportunity to serve in many cases if it's a nomad trip. So I just really love being outside and join God's creation.
Tammy: Even if it's not a NOMADS trip, you'll be guaranteed that we're talking about NOMADS and we're sharing it with everybody we come across as we're on our way.
Crystal: Tammy Rodney, thank you for this important ministry that you're a part of and for sharing with us today about your story with it. I just enjoyed learning more about it and hearing about the different adventures. It does sound like it's adventures for sure. I know it's ministry, but there's certainly adventure in there. So thank you so much for being a part of “Get Your Spirit in Shape.”
Tammy: You're welcome.
Rodney: Thank you for having us.
Tammy: Yes, thank you very much.
Epilogue
That was the Tammy and Rodney Ripley discussing their experience as NOMADS. To learn more, go to umc.org/podcast and look for this episode where you will find helpful links and a transcript of our conversation. If you have questions or comments, feel free to email me at a special email address just for “Get Your Spirit in Shape” listeners: gysis@umcom.org. If you enjoyed today's episode, we invite you to leave a review on the podcast platform where you listen. Thank you for taking the time to join us on "Get Your Spirit in Shape." I'm Crystal Caviness and I look forward to the next time that we're together.
