Savannah, Ga – With a 4,000-square-foot home on a gated island community in Savannah, GA, dozens of local friends, and plenty of time to enjoy the nearby golf courses, Jerry and Sandy Davis thought they had their retirement years figured out. But their life changed dramatically when, while leading a small group through “Experiencing God,” they heard God tell them to sell their home, leave Savannah, and spend their days traveling the US in an RV.
“We lived in a wonderful community,” Jerry Davis said. “But when you get the call from God, you’ve got to go.”
In many ways, the couple’s journey began when they started leading a small group Bible study more than three years ago.
“I was in church one Sunday when the pastor gave a sermon that inspired me to become a small group leader,” Sandy Davis said. “I told Jerry what I was feeling, and he agreed it was something we should do.”
The couple led their small group through various studies through the years, but Sandy Davis said one Bible study kept cropping up whenever she asked people for curriculum suggestions.
“‘Experiencing God’ was referred by a number of people,” she said. “I was hearing people say, ‘Oh, absolutely ‘Experiencing God.’”
She eventually suggested it to the group, and she said everyone was immediately on board. They began studying “Experiencing God” in September 2018.
“During the course of the study, everybody was being very dramatically impacted,” Sandy Davis said. “It was a priority in everybody’s life, and their lives were being changed. As the Bible says, ‘You have drunk the milk and now you will eat the meat.’ That’s what I felt like God did with our group. He brought them through basic stuff until we got to ‘Experiencing God.’ And then everyone was ready to really experience it.”
Jerry and Sandy Davis
Her encounter with God came when the group reached “Reality Five,” which addresses crises of belief.
“I really felt like God was speaking to me about selling our house and becoming full-time RVers,” she said. “I really cannot abide driving in a car for long distances. I have a real fear of it. So, when God dropped that into my spirit about being full-time RVers, I knew it was God!”
After about a month of fervent prayer, she told her husband what God had told her, and he said he felt God was saying the same thing to him.
At that point, the couple faced the daunting challenge of selling their home and most of their possessions and buying a truck and RV.
“It was a huge step,” Sandy Davis said. “I mean, physically, we had a lot of stuff and had lived there for a long time.”
But, to their surprise, their house sold quickly. In fact, their real estate company said the house set a record for the fewest days on the market in its price range.
“We didn’t expect that,” Jerry Davis said. “God sent us the right buyer, and we got close to our asking price for it. The whole thing went very smoothly.”
In addition to selling their house, they also sold or donated most of their possessions. The items they kept—for when they move out of their RV, or back into “sticks and bricks,” as Jerry Davis called it—are locked away in a storage unit.
“I thought I’d feel very sad about giving things away, but I just felt like God had already prepared me to do it, and I didn’t have any qualms at all,” Sandy Davis said.
After conducting a lot of research, they said they thought they’d found the perfect RV and the perfect truck to pull it. But in both instances, God had other plans.
“We showed up at the dealership [to buy the truck we had picked out], and the truck, which was a new truck, was dirty and scratched,” Sandy Davis said. “In my spirit I felt God saying, ‘That’s not the truck for you. I have a different truck for you.’”
So they left to look somewhere else. And as soon as they pulled up to the next dealership, they saw the perfect truck sitting right out front.
“The vehicle God provided was way better,” Sandy Davis said. “It was a better price, and it was a much better vehicle.”
They had a similar experience when shopping for an RV. On a drive home from visiting their daughter in Nashville, they felt God stirring them to stop at an RV dealership in Chattanooga, despite having already found one online they planned to buy.
“So we stop to look [and found an RV that] had just about everything we wanted,” Sandy Davis said. “Not everything, but it was $25,000 cheaper than the other one. So, to me, I felt like God had planned every step, exactly how ‘Experiencing God’ teaches. He’s not going to call you and then leave you hanging out there. You are going to be equipped.”
With their house sold, possessions in storage, and an RV and truck ready to go, the couple officially became full-time RVers in June 2019.
“There were really two reactions we got [when we set out on this adventure],” Jerry Davis said. “Our friends who were not Christians thought we were totally nuts. They said, ‘You live in this great home and are living the life everyone wants, and you’re throwing that over.’ They didn’t get it. But our Christian friends thought it was wonderful.”
Looking to the future, the couple said they are excited to see how God will use them to further His kingdom while they are on the road.
“We certainly aren’t Henry Blackaby,” Sandy Davis said. “We’re not Bible scholars. But we are believers who want to share what God has done in our life and equipped us to do with other people.”
One of their goals is to help others have life-changing encounters through “Experiencing God.” They joined a nationwide association called “Campers for Christ,” which is made up of Christian RVers, and are planning to lead an “Experiencing God” rally.
“A rally is when you put together a date, time, and location, and people come,” Sandy Davis explained. “There are a lot of rallies out there. People rally to drink beer or race cars and all sorts of things. So, I felt like, why couldn’t we have a rally to invite people to come for three months and go through ‘Experiencing God’? The Campers for Christ board was very receptive to that.”
Though the couple is still adjusting to their new lifestyle, they know they want to be available for God to use them in any way He sees fit.
“I’d like to be able to bring people to a deeper, more meaningful relationship with God” Jerry Davis said. “I don’t want to have my light under any basket. I want to be out there with people, and I think ‘Experiencing God’ and Blackaby Ministries International may be a good vehicle for that. We’re on the back side of our lives now, and I want to finish well.”
Sandy Davis echoed her husband’s statements: “Paul talked about doing our best at any stage of our life. And we are definitely in the last years of our life, and, honestly, I just couldn’t see myself sitting around playing golf.”
