From Phoenix to Utah!

Ladies and gentleman, you have missed so much! It has been quite an interesting week with much to say, so here we go.
Leaving Phoenix on Wednesday, February 22nd, we drove up the 17N through Sedona which was massively gorgeous. (I would post pictures but I don't have the right cord with me, which is why I will direct you to Marc's YouTube channel. Search "the urbanpilgrims" and you'll probably see my face.) Anywho, a very very gorgeous place to be but also very new age. We were there for a couple hours, just driving through and checking out the scenery and things. From there we headed to Flagstaff. We got into town around 5:45 and went straight to Calvary Chapel Flagstaff, hoping to catch midweek service. Turns out church started at 6:30, very sweet! We got to talk to Pastor Steve for a few minutes then went into church. He taught on Zechariah 14:12-end, all about end times. Some pretty sweet stuff. Afterwards we hung out and talked for over an hour with these 2 awesome young adults, Ryan and Alicia. Well, Ryan is still in high school but freshly 18 so I guess considered a young adult. :)Alicia treated us to Denny's (thank you!)and the 4 of us had a great time of fellowship.

The church let us sleep in their parking lot and the next day Pastor Steve told Alicia and Ryan that he was glad that we didn't stab them lol. After that I think they trusted us :)
We went out on Thursday to the college and the downtown. No bueno. We got pretty discouraged pretty quickly because of the lack of interest and the constant blow offs. Then Marc was stopped by this guy who asked for a dollar. For a moment it was a beacon of hope...until we realized that this drunk/high man was crazy! They talked for quite a while but at some point he took Marc's Bible and wouldn't give it back and started speaking all these blasphemies. Eventually he got it back and we kept walking down San Francisco St. Feeling pretty defeated, we headed back to the car and then back to the church, which kind of became our home base while we were in town. Again, we ended up hanging out with Ryan and his girlfriend, Katelyn. (I think I spelled that wrong. Kaitlin?)
The next day (Friday) we prayed and read a lot because we weren't sure if our rejection meant to leave town or to be more persistent. At the end of my reading, Paul shook the dust off of his sandals and left to the next city. A prayer answered! We decided to wait until after church on Sunday so that way we could get fed before we left.
On Friday night, CC Flagstaff had a night of worship called "Extol Him." It was such a blessing! Ryan is the church's worship leader and Kaitlin is one of the singers. Their 2 friends are also on the team, playing drums and electric guitar/vocals. It was really awesome to see 5 high schoolers rising to their calling and following after the Lord. That night, the daughter of the head pastor (Pastor Ron) invited us to stay at their house. They have this huge 5 bedroom house that Pastor Ron built himself! Four out of the 5 bedrooms are master bedrooms and their house is truly beautiful. That man has a gift! It was super awesome too because built into the shapes in the drywall, he imprinted the words "Jesus", "Father", and "Lord". Super awesome. That family/household (a few other people live there also) was such a huge blessing to us. Please pray that the Lord would bless them.
Saturday night we went to Ryan's 18th birthday party. It was '20's themed and they decked out the basement of the church. Marc was pretty much the only one who wasn't dressed according to the theme. (Don't worry, he doesn't read this blog so he won't know that I made fun of him lol) The party was great though. Ryan's girlfriend, in my opinion, stole the show with her adorable flapper dress, but that's just my opinion. We got to talk a lot with the pastor's son in law, Roman, then we ended up staying later to help put the church back in order. This is when I met my 3rd hero. (1, Jesus. 2, Ravi Zacharias. 3, Marsha)

Let me tell you about Marsha. Everyone talked about her, how crazy (in a good way) she is, always decorating and doing things, up at 2 am doing dishes or cooking for people. Oh yeah, she's 65 years old. Age has nothing on this woman, she is more energetic than people my age! I walked into the room and she's hanging this giant mirror on the wall and I asked, "Why isn't someone helping her with that?!" They, of course, are used to the way she is and that's what they said,..."That's just the way she is." We were constantly asking if she needed help with anything but she never did, she just did everything. She was always up later at night and earlier in the morning. Riana (her daughter) told us that she walked in one day and she was painting the vaulted ceiling by putting a ladder on the bed. Crazy right. BUT AWESOME!
Ok, I tried to be brief but it's not working. Moving on, Sunday morning! We got up, went to church and then after went to Subway with Riana, Roman, Ryan, Kaitlin, Kaylee (positive I spelled that wrong), Marsha, and Pastor Ron. From there we headed out. Not to steal their crowns or anything, but we were blessed by a lot of people there. Their love and support meant more than I think they know.
From Flagstaff it was a LOOONG drive to the Grand Canyon, or, as Roman put it, a huge hole in the ground.

After oogling the grand view (pun intended), we rode the shuttle and figured out that that was a good way to talk to people who weren't too busy oogling themselves. We talked to this couple from Chicago who told us of their grand adventures but got off the bus before we could really tell them anything of substance. Next we struck up a convo with these 3 guys from Alaska who were on a 5 week trip going hiking and rafting and what not. SICK! The guy in front of us who we were mainly talking with seemed slightly uncomfortable with Marc but he still talked to him for a bit about his travels. We told him what we were doing and he seemed to turn around a little bit then soon after got off of the bus. So it goes.
From there we drive for almost 3 hours to a small town kind of east of Page, AZ. When I say small, I mean that we at first drove through it in about 15 seconds. Literally.
Which, essentially, brings us to the present...Salt Lake City! We stopped off at CC Salt Lake City and talked to the manager of the bookstore and the assistant pastor, Pastor John (not Milhouse) lol. They filled us in on a lot of things about the city and the culture. From there we went to Marc's mom's old family friend's house where we had dinner and are staying the night. Thankfully because it's snowing!
But that is the update...I have a little bit more to say but it's definitely time to get off of the computer!
Stay tuned, as always. :) We're going out into the city tomorrow so I'm sure there will be lots to talk about.

day 7...a day for the blog

Today was an experience! Or as I told Marc, "a day for the blog"!
We woke up this morning and drove from Phoenix to Tempe to go to ASU (Arizona State University), which apparently is the largest university in the nation. Interesting tid bit there for you. They have a religious group on campus called CoRA (Council of Religious Affairs) that set up an event called "I <3 Faith" where various religious groups on campus can come set up a table so that students can walk around and see their options of what is available to them.
Today was definitely an eye-opening day for a few reasons. You spend so much time around friends from church and just doing the same thing all the time that you don't really interact with new things/ideas so to see so much going on at one time was just crazy to me. But anyways, back to the story....
So we teamed up with YWAM, which stands for Youth with a Mission. That mission is to raise up and send out missionaries all over the world. We got there around 8:45 and helped set up, prayed for the table, and was introduced to a few people. Firstly, we met the leader of CoRA who reminded me of the Unitarian lady from The Truth Project. She said overall that their goal was to encourage spirituality on campus. Coming from a Christian, this kind of confused me, for what good is it to be spiritual if the spirit you're connected with is not true? Moving on from there, we walked around the campus. Marc talked to a couple people who were generally disinterested. They gave him the time of day but just didn't care about the whole "God thing". So we headed back to the table but on the way make a couple of stops. One of them was at "Youth Life", a Christian organization on campus that is all about fellowship. The guy was really into the fact that they are all about hanging out an developing relationships and the thing that drew him in was that "they're not always talking about stuff and trying to shove stuff down your throat". This made my heart sad to see Christians who weren't interested in the word. A woman from the group came over later and was talking to us about it and she said that at every meeting they share the gospel and a message and go into small groups so that was a little more encouraging.
Next we headed to the Mormon table! Exciting for me :) First I talked to the girl at the table who seemed a bit naive. We talked for about 20 minutes till this other guy, Mike, came and took over. He knew a little bit more than the girl did but I brought up a lot of questions to him that he wasn't really sure of. We talked for about 30 minutes and he agreed to go home and look up the different problems with the book of Mormon. He promised me that he would and in the mean time he told me to do 1 of 2 things. I replied with, "I'm not going to pray about the book of Mormon, so what's number 2?" I explained to him why and he said the other thing was to meet with a missionary. I told him that I am not new to talking to Mormons and about how many I've talked to in the past. He seemed a little astonished and told me instead of talking to a missionary to go to the institute of religion on campus (basically an LDS church where they teach their doctrine) and talk to one of the professors. Coincidentally, he happened to be walking by at the time so Mike pulled him over and I briefed him on what we had been talking about then I shared with him as I shared with Mike my skepticism of the Mormon beliefs/doctrines. It was really cool because I was able to give them the gospel, the true gospel, and also shared with them Galatians 1:8 which says, "But even if we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel to you than what we have preached to you, let him be accursed." and then shared with them that if they died today I don't want them to be deceived by this other doctrine and go to hell because they believed wrongly. It was cool talking to this guy who has been a leader and a missionary and just educated and high up and giving him the gospel. Pray for the 2nd guy, Mike, because I really think that seeds were planted.
Moving on from there, Marc had been talking to this Christian guy named Rich (I think) who was super encouraged by our trip. He was really, really nice and showed us to our next destination: a religious panel of "experts" who were going to explain to us their religion's stance on the end of the world. First up was a professor of anthropology who spoke on the 2012 end of the world controversy. Long story short, myth busted, they don't believe it. It's just a difference in calendar styles.
Guy #2-Rabbi Lee, who was, obviously, Jewish. Strangely enough, the Jews apparently don't have a definite belief on what will happen in the end. They have ideas of peace & justice where the enemies of the Jews are destroyed and the Jews are regathered to their land and another view of a day of wrath but there is no definitive prophecy of what will happen. He even said, "We're not even sure if it will happen." Crazy!
Up next we had a pastor of a Methodist church. I was thoroughly disappointed with the lack of knowledge he had on the subject. He read a couple verses from Revelation and spent most of the time discussing whether or not the book was to be taken literally or figuratively. He spoke of the peace that would come in the end but said nothing of the rapture/tribulation/armageddon. I was totally disappointed.
After him was a representative of Islam who was extremely thorough in the things that he presented. A lot of it sounded similar to what Christians believe. He even had a very evangelistic approach as he spoke. Totally showed up the pastor.
Lastly we have the Mormon professor who spoke from Matthew 24, also explaining WAY more than the pastor did. The whole experience was an interesting learning experience but it opened my eyes to see how "politically correct" people have become. People won't stand fully for what they believe because they want to appeal to their colleagues and audience. The best one, sadly, was the Muslim.
After leaving there we left ASU and went back to Phoenix. In the morning we will be heading out to Flagstaff and from there, Utah.
:) see you soon

A Worker is Worthy of His Food (days 1-4)

Last you heard we were leaving on Tuesday, February 14th. Turns out we left on the 15th because we had a couple more things to take care of, so here is the rundown of where we've been and what we've been up to!
Wednesday the 15th (day 1):
We left Moreno Valley in the rain around 3pm. It was a somber but exciting moment as we drove down the 10 East. The stereo was temporarily out of commission so all we had was each other....great. Haha, just kidding. So we talked about missing home and family and friends, we talked about how it still didn't feel real, we talked about the crazy things that might happen. Our first stop was supposed to be my uncle's house in Yucca Valley but we realized that we passed the exit for it by about 70 miles! Eeek! Guess we enjoyed talking to each other :) so we turned around and went back and made it to their house about an hour late. oops! It was nice visiting with them and sharing about our mission and why we're doing it. They fed us (thank you!) and let us spend the night, (thank you!) a huge help because it was snowing when we got there!
Thursday the 16th (day 2):
The beginning of day 2 began at 3:45 am when we got up to drive to Arizona. We had to be in Quartzsite (about 15 miles inside the border) at 8:30am, 7:30 California time.

(We crossed the border around 6:50 am, Cali time)
But anyways, Marc had a couple of old tickets that he had to clear up and we were really scared that he might have to serve time. We had tried to pay the tickets several months before but because it had been so long since he received them, he now had to appear before a judge to clear it up! oh jeez! So we got to the smallest courthouse I've ever seen! Literally. There was no line-I've waited longer at the post office! So we go in and get seen and the judge tells Marc the total fines: $558 for driving with a suspended license, $300 and something for failing to appear, another $300 and something for I don't remember what, and finally $247 for a ticket that hadn't been paid off yet for a lovely grand total of $1,405! To quote my friend Jessika, "Jeepers!" After everything was said and done, the judge was gracious and we walked paying $530! Praise Jesus! Seriously!

Moving on from Quartzsite, the land of dirt and rocks, we made our way to Phoenix and got to my Mama's house. Upon arriving we ate lunch and offered to help my Mom clean her house, after all, a worker is worthy of his food! Well my Mom didn't need too much help but my sister did! So we moved all of her stuff from the side room to the back room and cleaned it out really well. A very long, tiring day! We slept like babies that night! Which brings us to:

Friday the 17th (Day 3):
Friday morning we woke up and worked on my sister's room some more throughout the day. We also went grocery shopping to pick up some things we forgot in Cali, then just hung out with my family for the night.

Saturday the 18th (day 4):
Today we hit the town! Well, sort of. We stopped at a local Calvary to pick up bulletins. If we meet people on the streets and tell them about Jesus, we want to have somewhere to send them. So we stopped at their bookstore and got some bulletins to hand out as we talked to people. There ended up being a really nice guy there named Adam that Marc talked to for about 30-40 minutes. We ended up getting some tracts and a book and Adam prayed us off! From there we went to the mall, sure to be a busy spot on a Saturday! And it was!
As we walked around the outside of the building, Marc was able to start a couple conversations. The first guy was polite but in a hurry so the convo didn't last long. The second man barely gave him the time of day. As we were walking away a group of 5 or 6 high school boys were approaching. Jokingly Marc whispered, "This is going to be fun." If you know Marc you know that his affinity is definitely not for that age group but nevertheless he was obedient. He stopped them and one boy in particular, Danny, gave Marc his attention and was answering his questions, but the whole time he was laughing and had a demeanor that showed that he was looking for his out. It was amazing to see, as they talked and Marc shared the gospel with him, that his whole attitude changed. He really seemed to go from looking like a "punk kid" to actually caring about his repentance. He became serious, the joking was gone, he treated Marc with respect. It was a very touching moment. He was even ok with receiving prayer out in the open. Very cool!
We encountered a few other people-a man and a woman together. The woman just completely picked up pace, raising her voice to proclaim that she was happy to be an atheist and cutting Marc off at every opportunity about not wanting to discuss it. It was a very sad thing to see. The man, trying to keep up, claimed agnosticism and said there was still hope for him so we gave him a bulletin and a tract before he rushed off.
Please join us in prayer for these people :) and the others Marc was able to share with.

The plan from here: we're (maybe) leaving on Monday. Still praying about going east to New Mexico or north to Utah, which I would be super excited about seeing as I looooove talking to Mormons! Anywho, may God lead us as a pillar of fire!
Stay tuned!

update as we prepare to head out

My, my, my, how time has gone by!
Today is Monday, February 13th, the last full day before our departure. The Lord has truly blessed us in leaving. A verse I shared in my last blog was, "And my God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus." Philippians 4:19 Little did I know when I wrote that how true His word would prove to be. How amazing it is to see God working through friends and family. If you are reading this, thank you! Pray for us! If you are supporting us in any way (monetarily, spiritually, etc), thank you! I am so thankful and humbled by what I've seen these past couple of weeks. You guys are truly amazing.
Just to give some examples of how God has directed our steps and made this whole thing possible:
1) I sold my car aka a huge piece of debt :)
2) an amazing couple adopted our 2 sponsored African children
3) another amazing couple offered to pay our phone bill while we were gone, allowing us to keep connected with you lovely people! :)
4) we have no debt! a feat that most people never accomplish!
5) our van is in great working condition, tuned up and ready to go thanks to Steve Kirkwood, our fanastic mechanic and good friend!
6) we saved about $600 on insurance for a whole year!
We were amazingly blessed in many other ways as well, but this is just to give you an idea of what has been going on in our lives.

So what now?

We are heading out in the afternoon tomorrow, (February 14th, 2012) stopping at the church first so the pastors can pray for us. What a blessing to have the support of others! Prayer is such a powerful, life changing tool! Use it!
From there we are headed out to Arizona. Our first stop will be Quartzsite, where we have to take care of a couple of old tickets. Please pray hard for this because we have a feeling that Marc might have to spend a few nights in jail to pay his debt to society, but if that is God's will then I know it is where he was supposed to be. He likes to say that he'll be like Paul, but I remind him that Paul was arrested for preaching the gospel, not failing to pay traffic tickets lol. From Quartzsite, we will continue east (slightly south) to Phoenix where we will stay with my beautiful mother. After that, God only knows. :)
But anyways, that is where we're at right now. We are working like crazy today to take care of last minute things, buying a gas can, snow chains, tidying up the van, etc.
*side note-I am totally not ready for kids! I swear I clean out the van almost everyday and it's still a mess lol. (no I'm not pregnant, don't ask) :)

Just a quick update for you :) stay tuned to see if Marc is going to start a ministry in jail :) haha.
Again, thank you for your prayers!!! And feel free to comment, call, text, whatever! We already miss so many of you.