(I say that pretty often, it's probably not going to happen. Lol! But this is gonna be a good one!)
Last time we met, Marc & I were in Burlington, Vermont on Wednesday, July 18th.
Thursday was a chill, catch up day. Non-eventful.
On Friday we got up and cleaned the carpet in the van. If you'll remember back to Canandaigua, NY, we left the top window open on the van and it rained so everything got wet, including a bit of the carpet, which we didn't notice because it was only under our food bin so the van STANK, like McNasty! So we cleaned it out then went & sat at a local park overlooking a lake while Marc played guitar & I crocheted. After a while, we headed downtown. The first guy we came across was sitting on a bench by himself (I like to call these people "Marc Magnets") so Marc started talking to him. He had been sober for a year and a half and believed in God, but I don't think he really practiced. Marc talked to him for a little while & then we kept walking.
There was a guy sitting against a pole holding a sign and we got all the way across the street before Marc turned around to talk to him. He offered him food but upon second thought we didn't really have too much in the van so we just went and got him a burrito. A crazy expensive burrito, might I add. It was around $7 which would have been fine if it was the size of a Chipotle burrito, but it wasn't! It was like, 1/2 the size. So lame.
Anywho, so Marc talked to him. He believed in God, the existence of Jesus, & heaven and hell, but said he wasn't religious. He was given the gospel and the opportunity to accept Jesus, but he said he needed to think about it.
The next guy I call Jonny Depp Jr. He was probably in the 17-19 range and had just started living on the streets. He told us that he was agnostic but didn't believe in a god as the higher being, but that purpose and a higher calling was the thing that was higher than him. I didn't really get what he was going for and he didn't seem interested to talk so on we went!
The next couple stories are kind of fuzzy-Marc was talking to people while I was on the phone with my Mommy. She was having brain surgery the next day so I wanted to have a nice long conversation with her, and I did! I do know that the 1st one was a traveler, also, and so super polite. I love when we interact with people who are down to just have a civil conversation, to present their ideas & all a response. Also known as a conversation! So many people want to just drop their opinions on us and leave, but I caught a little bit of the conversation before my phone call. He was agnostic, I know that much. They talked back & forth for probably about 20 minutes and then he came and sat next to me on the bench. Just as he did, he noticed that there was a guy sitting alone on the next bench so off he went to talk to him. He was a history major & was really smart. Except that he believed the Bible was not the truth because of man's selfishness so Marc told him a few really valid points and they talked for a while, as well. Then randomly, before Marc walked away, this man next to them insisted on playing Marc a song. It was pretty funny. And that was most of Friday.
Saturday was pretty much the coolest road trip ever! We left at a decent hour (10 ish maybe) and headed out. Our first stop was a special request by my Mama in Stowe, Vermont. Apparently the Sound of Music is based on a true story, which I totally didn't know! After the family fled Austria, they made it to Vermont where they eventually settled. They did travel the country singing & performing to make money. So, Stowe, Vermont is where they settled & built a lodge and now you can stay there. It's pretty beautiful.
Here is a funny story I learned while there:
I asked the lady in the gift shop if Maria (main character) was really a nun and she said absolutely! Maria was sent away from the abbey to work for the VonTrapps and one day as her time drew to a close, she was cleaning the chandelier and the kids were up to no good. They told their father, the Baron, that they liked her and wanted her to stay with them so they should get married. The Baron replied, "I don't even think she likes me." So the kids ran over and asked Maria, "Do you like our Father?" and she said, "Well, yeah, sure," thinking as a friend. So they run back and tell the Baron, so he comes over to her and says, "About our engagement...." Maria was so shocked that she dropped the glass she was cleaning.
She went back to the abbey and was praying. She didn't want to marry the baron, she wanted to move back to the abbey and be a nun, again! But the nuns told her that she needed to stay with him and be a mother to the children and that in time she would grow to love him. So she did! I thought that was a cute little story.
So we snapped some pictures and got back on the road. We had been driving for about an hour or two when we passed a little Mennonite farm house that had a fruit stand with a sign that said "Free Kittens"! Yes! So I told Marc and we discussed it for an all too quick 10 seconds, then turned around to get a kitty. It was funny because we both knew it wasn't a good idea, but we both really wanted to do it. So we pull up and get out and the woman says that we have to go meet her daughter at the barn and try to find one of them! Oh geez. So we get over there and this barn is just COVERED in spiderwebs, big ones, everywhere. There were 4 other people in there trying to find kitties, but they couldn't find any. There were apparently 10 in there somewhere, but the girls told us that all of the calm ones had been taken already so we had to find one of the wild ones. We were all over the place...climbing on old rusty tractors and over big' busted up buggies and on top of piles of tires, trying to catch a kitty without getting tetanus! It was an adventure! And I got to hold a baby goat! Just when I thought all hope was lost, we saw one! A little orange one! And he was SO cute! Marc and I and the 2 girls cornered him...or so we thought. He got away and we gave up shortly after. As cool as it would have been, we left with no kitty, but gained a cool experience. And we were back on the road!
To get from Vermont to Maine you have to go through New Hampshire, so we did! On the way we saw the Appalachian trail so we had to get out and at least step on it. So we did, and we adventured down to the lake that was nearby & then it was back in the car for the rest of the drive! By the time we finally got into Bangor, Maine, it was probably around 7:00. We had turned a few hour drive into an awesome day. :) As always, we found the church before doing anything. There were a couple people standing over on the side so we went and talked to them. One of them was called Big Jim & he was a pastor there. We got to talk to him and a lovely woman named Melissa for a little while. He offered to let us sleep in the parking lot but we said we'd go to Walmart 'cause they have a restroom, but he said he'd give us a key to use while we were there....and they have showers! Heck yes! I love me a shower! haha so we stayed there & showered & hung out. It was a good night!
Sunday morning we got up and hung out upstairs in their coffee shop & then went to service. After service we were back upstairs. We met the pastor, Ken Graves, and his wife, Jeanette, their daughter, Jessica, her husband, John & a few other people here and there. After study we hung out with a family who lives over an hour away. In between services (they have one at 6PM also) they hang out there instead of driving back and forth. Nina, the wife, fed us a delicious rice & bean concoction and Carl, the husband, played cards with us. Then! Awesomeness! He busted out his Irish whistles (flutes) and the boys had a jam fest. Wait for the video, it will be super! And then it was time for church. They were having a picnic so there were about 30 people there and then there was service. Pastor Ken taught out of 1 Samuel 1-2 and was talking about Hannah's desire to have a child. I was thinking, "Weird! I want to have a baby!" So I prayed and wondered if God was getting at something, but I didn't hear anything clearly. All I knew was that Hannah gave to God the desire of her heart, so I knew that's what I needed to do-make His desires for me, my desires.
On Monday we went out into the city to this place called Pickering Square. It is near a bus stop so there is a lot of foot traffic, but for some reason, this is where all the street kids congregate. It's a big circle that has about 10-12 benches around it and there was people all around. The first guy we talked to was actually before we even got there. He was just walking by, but Marc stopped him and they started talking. He has just started going to church and is on a quest for truth. Sweet. They talked for a bit and then we were off. We came across these 3 guys, but they were on their way somewhere & kept kinda walking away so Marc invited them to the youth group and then we made it to the square.
So we sat on one of the benches and didn't really know where to start. It felt awkward....would we just go from bench to bench in sight of everyone? Make the rounds, so to speak? That didn't sound appealing, so we sat there, waiting. Then Marc gets up and goes to talk to the guy who is playing music & looking like a rap star. They were talking for a while, and other people just kept coming. Two would come, one would leave, that kind of thing. In Pickering Square, everyone knows everyone else. Literally. This girl came almost running over to me and sat next to me & said that she was from California, too! We got to talking and she told us that she had been in Maine for a few years-her parents sent her there to get clean when she was 19 and she'd been there ever since. I didn't know what to say really. I asked her if she believed in God and she said that she used to but she lost hope when her daughter got taken away from her, then died in a car accident. I felt so drawn to talk to her, I just didn't know much of what to say. I've learned that there are times when the hurt is so deep, that saying nothing is better than saying something and sounding like an idiot. So I just sat with her.
We talked about life-jobs and school, life in Cali, different things. And then we were off.
On Tuesday morning, Marc got up kinda early and went to help this guy named Mike with a ministry he runs called "Safe Families". They basically will find a temporary home for your child when you are not in a position to take care of them but to avoid state interference. They also deliver food & other goods to families in need. So they made a bunch of deliveries and then came back to the church. It started raining so we didn't go into town, but Marc went outside to help Ken with yard work. I stayed inside to work on my Etsy shop.
What is that, you may ask? Let me tell you!
Etsy is an online thing where you can post things to sell. I opened my Etsy shop to support Khris & Michelle Rogers from Ohio. They are adopting a boy from Ethiopia but it costs $30-40,000! So here is my contribution. I don't have much money, but I do have time, so Marc and I (mostly me) make things and post them up for sale & all of the money goes to them! I'm pretty excited about it. Check it out, and show some support! Pleeeeease :)
Ok, plug over. :) That night was youth group & it was luau themed with a bbq, so Marc & I stuck around and helped to set up.....and reap the benefits ;) We even got to join in on an awesome game of "staff vs. youth" volleyball. Super fun! The best part-there was a ton of leftovers so rather than throwing them away, they put them in the fridge for us & we ate for the rest of the week. So nice to have access to a kitchen & a fridge! I had so much chocolate milk! :)
On Wednesday, the pastor, Ken, and his wife, Jeanette, invited us to go out with them on their boat. After a quick stop at their house, we were off! It's funny because if you don't know who Ken Graves is, every Calvary man has a man crush on him. He teaches a lot about being a man and gender roles & stuff like that, but his voice is so booming. He teaches with strength in his voice that totally backs up what he is saying. Because of all of this, people make tons of jokes about him. You know the Chuck Norris jokes people make? They make those about him. I feel like he would be in the movie "300" if that was real life today. Anyways, all of that to say, while we were at his house, I was in the kitchen with his wife and he walks by, taps my purse, and says, "Lay your burden down!" It was pretty hilariously awesome, but that's just the way he talks, very Old King James. Now Marc & I always say that to each other. Yeah, so the boat! Jeanette made us lunch and then we hopped in the water. It was super clear! We even climbed up on an island and picked wild blueberries!
Then it was off to church!
This is one of the coolest stories. After worship, Ken gets up there & says, " We haven't done this in a while, but I want you to get into groups and pray for the people around you." So the people in front of us turn around and we chatted for a minute or two. They told us they'd been going to a church closer to their house and hadn't been at Calvary for a few months but just decided to come tonight. So we got everyone's prayer request and then it was my turn. Marc had already briefed them on the trip so I didn't have much to say, but then I remembered, "Oh! I do have a prayer request!" When we were in Vermont, we noticed that one of our tires was wearing a bit, but about 4 days earlier, we noticed that it was now BALD. The wire was showing through! Ugh. I told Marc we should pray about it, but I just kept forgetting to pray about it. So that was my prayer request-provision for new tires. Jen, the other woman in the group, said, "Oh, my dad owns a scrapyard. We could probably get you a couple tires. They'll be used, but we can try." Heck yes! I was so happy! God is good. So we all prayed then after church they got our info & tire size and said they'd call us the next day. Man, God is good! (For the sake of chronology, this story will be continued after a brief interjection of Thursday.) After church, their young adult group meets and eats together and plays games so we went up and hung out with them, got our food on then played some Uno. It was good times.
Thursday came and we went back out to Pickering Square and it was the same story. Most of the faces were different, but everyone knows everyone else and everyone is down to talk. We got to have a solid conversation with this one guy. He had told us during our previous visit that he didn't believe in Heaven or hell or God because he was in the hospital once and he was dead for 5 minutes before they could resuscitate him. Everyone, when they die and come back, talk about seeing a light and feeling at peace, but he didn't. It was just dark, there was no light and he said he didn't feel at peace, he felt tormented. Well, that is what hell is....outer darkness & torment. Scary. After a few more conversations, it began to rain, so we headed back to the church to our new kick it spot-the coffee house!
Later that evening, Marc (Jen's husband) called us and said that they found us tires! Yay! But they didn't find us two, they found us FOUR! And they looked brand new! Best part-they were free!! Praise teh Lord! So here is how the story progressed-the church didn't have prayer circles on Wednesdays for a while, and these people hadn't been there in a while, and I finally remembered to pray for new tires, and BOOM! FOUR new tires! For free!!! Man, how awesome is that?! People say there is no God and that He isn't good. Please. They have no idea what they're talking about!
On Friday we went back down to Pickering Square for the last time. We got to meet up with the Elizabeth (the girl from the 1st day) again and when we got to talking, my suspicion was confirmed that she was still doing drugs. We talked about it for a little while & I asked her a few questions, then told her she was throwing her life away. She said she knew it, but couldn't help it so I told her about the program at the church called Blessed Hope. It's a year long discipleship program where you move into the house and are discipled. They teach you to have a relationship with God and get on your feet. It's pretty sweet. We exchanged info & she said she'd come check it out. Shortly afterwards, there was almost a fight and people were just kinda tense, so we took off & walked around the city a bit and then it was back to the church.
And then it was my birthday!!!! :)
We went and got some eggs and an avocado and had a YUMMY breakfast! Minor detour from the bday celebration-we went & got our tires installed-and then it was off to the beach! Bar Harbor, to be exact. Word on the street, Bar Harbor, or, as the "Mainah's" call it, "Bah Habah", is a touristy spot so we went! When we got there, we went to get lunch at this place called Geddy's. I got a chicken sandwich and Marc got his lobster & clam chowder. I know, you'd think it was his bday or something! lol
After lunch we walked around the city, went into the shops, and just chilled together. After our food settled, we went to get ice cream :) Marc tried lobster flavored ice cream. DISGUSTING. It was even too much for him. We took our delicious, normal flavored, ice cream down to the water front and sat on a bench over looking the Atlantic. What a beautiful spot. We walked along the water and down onto the beach area that was covered with rocks. It was a little more secluded so we started playing a game where one of us would throw a big rock into the water while the other tried to hit it with a rock. That's right, a poor kid's game! haha but it was so awesome. It was around dusk by now and I wanted coffee so we found this awesome little coffee house where we sat and played Trivial Pursuit. For a second, Marc was ahead of me, but no worries, I pulled out the big W. We walked around some more after that and I got a craving for pie, so we found a restaurant. When we walked in we were greeted by the bartender, but he told us that the kitchen was closed. :( oh sad day. Before we left, he asked what we were looking for and he said he could handle that for us :) YEAH! Turns out, it was the birthday of the girl next to us, too! We hung out and talked to them for a couple minutes, then, having overheard that it was my birthday as well, the bartender brought me my cake slice with a candle in it! It made my night!
I really had such an amazing birthday. The love that I got from my family and friends was awesome, and to spend the day with my husband making me feel special was great. :) And now I'm 25!
On Sunday morning, we picked up Elizabeth for church. We had a guest speaker named Wes Bentley who is the director of Far Reaching Ministries. His study was great and pretty much confirmed to us that we were going to Africa. He taught on Daniel 6 and what being a man of God is about & shared a lot of stories from Sudan, where he disciples and fights along side his men in the Sudanese war where the Islamist north is trying to wipe out the Southern Sudanese "infidels".
In one of the stories, they were severely outmanned, but they fought anyways, trying to give the women and children a chance to escape. Once they had all evacuated, the men pulled back. Later, when they went back to check the bodies and bury them, there were so many bodies that they needed a bulldozer, but they were all from the other side and almost none of them had any wounds on them.....they were just dead. Now that is some Old Testament faith right there!
A couple things that he said that really touched me were:
We don't live this life for ourselves to have a good life, we live that others might now God.
-This convicted me because I had been questioning for a long time if we were really supposed to go to Africa or if I would just stay home and have babies, but those were my desires. Since I had previously committed to give God my desires, I now knew, it wasn't about what I wanted. It's about serving Him.
The second thing he said was that in America, our faith is tested by our comforts, but in Sudan it is tested by pain. Their country is war torn and they experience suffering like we have no idea of, but they have joy and they love God. We complain and think the world is over when we lose a job or whatever. I'm not trying to trivialize anyone's pain or situation, I know God puts us where He does for a reason, but their lives are so vastly different from ours.
After church, we introduced Elizabeth to Jeanette and she got all the info she needs about Blessed Hope. Pray for her because I think she's scared about it-I don't think she likes the idea of moving into a house for a year that is drug, alcohol, and smoke free. Then we took her to lunch before taking her back home. Let me tell you, do not ever eat Mexican food in Maine. It's gross.
While we waited for church to start back up at 6, we walked around Bangor & talked for a little while. It was a nice time with my sweet :) When we got back, there was a container of blueberries on the front desk with a note that said they were for us! So sweet!!!!
As always, church was awesome. Afterwards, we met Jenna & Rachel, 2 friends who go to Calvary. They invited us over to Rachel's house where she made us pizza and brownies! They were delicious! We had a cool night of talking with them and then Rachel's husband, also. It's so cool how we are always meeting new people and being blessed by the body of Christ.
The next morning, we killed off our eggs, took a shower, and said our good-byes! Kathy, a woman who helps out with Blessed Hope, told us to stop by the kitchen before we left, so we did. Back story--a few weeks ago, we had a bunch of food, so we said we wouldn't buy anymore until we were completely out. Then about a week ago, we were getting pretty low and I told Marc, "What if God wants to bless us, but we're just not letting Him because we always go buy food before we need it?" So we agreed that we would give God opportunity and if we were out, then after a couple days, we'd go get some. Ok, so Kathy gave us SO much food! She filled up our whole food bin with cans, plus almost 50 cans that didn't fit in the bin, then 3 different kinds of cereal, 2 boxes of Ritz, and 2 boxes of Cheez-Its and a big box of dry milk powder, which is WAY better than I thought. I thought I was going to have to suffer through nasty milk, but it's good! Praise God! Seriously! We needed tires, and HE GAVE them to us. We needed food and HE GAVE it to us. It is so awesome to see how God uses people to bless us.
Then we took off! We stopped in Augusta on the way down to New Hampshire to go to the statehouse (aka state capitol building) but it was lame. So lame. And then we were off to New Hampshire!!!
Stay tuned for the next blog. :) It will start with a ridiculous story!!!!
lamest state sign ever
Carl & the Irish whistle!
a delicious dinner of refried beans, cheese, and tortilla chips
Bangor, Maine
swimming at the lake with Ken & Jeanette
oh, and I cut Marc's hair. This is before.
looks a little lopsided, but I fixed it!
see, it looks ok!
Bar Harbor for my bday!
that's the Atlantic
and that's a giant rocking horse
Lobster ice cream. ew.
brown & white....just like us :)
DOMINATION
In Maine they love 2 animals: the crab....
....and the moose
OOOOH YEAH!
:)
All the food we were blessed with!
oh yeah, there were two gavels...and I held
them both. Then I booked it outta there!
If only they believed that!
Imposter!
