North Dakota

North Dakota. What is there to say about North Dakota. Marc was reading in a book called 1.000 Places to See in the US, or something like that. Anyways, there was an article about a couple who went there because it was their 50th state and they didn't want to miss out on 50 states because they hadn't been to North Dakota. Anyways, they mentioned it to someone at a restaurant or something, and they gave them a certificate for making ND their 50th state. They even had a book for them to sign for people who visited NS as their final state. Nobody wants to go there because there isn't a lot to do there. Now, no offense meant at all, we met several wonderful people in North Dakota, but there just wasn't very much to do there. Despite its size, there was a calmness about it that made it quite enjoyable. It’s a slower life that isn’t so wrapped up in everything else that everyone else seems to be consumed by.
We left South Dakota on Wednesday, September 4^th and made it to Fargo, North Dakota a few hours early for church. With no direction of where to go or where people were, we stuck close to the church. There was a park maybe a mile away that we went to chill at. When we walked up we saw these kids fighting. We were going to break them up, but we realized that it was playful. I still didn’t like it, but Marc said they were just being boys. As I was talking on the phone, Marc felt the need to go talk to these kids. Of course, they need Jesus as well, but I always feel weird talking to kids when their parents aren’t there. Anyways, I got off the phone and looked over and all of the kids were bent over in a circle around Marc. He was reading the Bible to them. Adorable. Also adorable was when these kids, who apparently hadn’t seen gauges before, started sticking their fingers in Marc’s ear holes. Gotta love kids. As I made my way over to them, I hear one kid saying something about, “Well we don’t believe that. Allah….” This kid named TJ was no more than 10 0r 11 years old, but he knew his religion and he knew it well. We talked to the group for about 25 minutes and went back and forth with this kid. There was another younger boy engaged in the conversation as well. Every time a name was mentioned that he recognized (Jesus, Moses, Adam, etc), he had to tell us everything he knew about them. It was pretty adorable. It was fairly difficult to talk to TJ. I had never spoken about religion to a Muslim before, let alone a child. How was I supposed to make it understandable for him and show him that Jesus is the only way? It was definitely challenging. After a little while of talking to the kids, three of which were Muslim but none quite as well versed or interested as TJ, 3 ladies came walking over. I thought for sure they were parents of at least one of the kids and were going to reprimand us for talking to their kids without them there. Turns out they just lived nearby but they stayed and talked to us, I think to make sure we weren’t creepers. Fair enough. They told us that the little boy who kept telling us all of the stories that he knew was a pastor’s kid at the church they go to. No wonder he knew so much! As we chatted, TJ asked us if we listened to rap and when we said yes, he said, “Can I come with you to your van?” Before we had the change to say no, one of the ladies did, which really made me feel like they thought we were creepers. Oh well, it’s always better safe than sorry. So we got going back to the ban where we had sandwiches and then headed out to church for the Wednesday night service.
Church was sweet. We met the pastor, Seth, and his wife Tanya, then a very nice woman named Lisa and her family. Pastor Seth taught on Samson and made some pretty awesome points. One, every time Samson acted, it was out of selfishness and self promotion and two, there are only two recorded times that he cried out to the Lord. This was the man who should have been leading Israel and was concerned mostly with himself, yet we see God’s grace so heavily in that he is mentioned, albeit briefly, in the hall of faith. How wonderful that he sees us the same way-with patience, grace, and loving kindness because we seek Him.
Soon after church, we head out to Walmart. As we stepped in, immediately we noticed-it wasn’t a coincidence that those 3 kids at the park were Muslim. We were in a heavy Islamic area-the whole time we were there, I counted 10 women in berkas. Wow. After we had walked around for a bit, one of the workers approached us to ask if we had any questions. He and Marc got to talking for a good little while and he said at first that he did believe in God, but eventually admitted that it was kind of his “own thing.” He believed in evolution and nature (whatever that means) and didn’t appreciate going to church because of this crazy pastor that he had. She gave him a bad taste for church and religion and since then he hasn’t gone to church. I would not want to be her on judgment day.
On Thursday morning, we put time aside to study Islam. We still had a few bucks on our Starbucks card, so we got our usual passion tea and sat there for a few hours, reading and watching DVDs on the subject. About halfway through the time we were there, Marc walked by this group of guys and says, “This might sound really weird, but are you guys a band?” Turns out they were, and guess where they were from? Riverside, California. No stinkin way! Marc talked with them for a while longer then sat down. One of them came over to us and told us about the positive message of their music, said he was a Christian, too, and said he would put us on the guest list so we could go to their show that night. Sweetness!
We finished our studies and headed out. We weren’t really sure where to go, so we went to the mall to walk around and see if there was anything interesting there. There wasn’t, so we went to Barnes & Noble so I could write my blog. They were having a local writer’s showcase, so Marc went from table to table talking to the authors, and then we were off to the show!
The show was in the basement of a shop and was a very interesting place. If I had a grungy haircut and a black shirt on, I would’ve fit in much better, but that’s ok. I noticed that the older that I get, the more I dislike being in places where I feel like I don’t belong, in subcultures that aren’t my own. When I became a Christian, all of the other “groups” or cultures that I was a part of, slowly faded out of my life. Music, tattoos, piercings, and all of the other things I was interested in became secondary to learning about God and in the time that I used to pursue other things, I was now using to grow in my walk, so I slowly pulled back from being a part of those other things. That isn’t to say you have to, it was just the way that my relationship went. So now to be thrown back into a culture that I was never truly part of anyways, was uncomfortable. I told Marc, “That’s what Robert is for, to come to these things with you.” I mean, let’s be real. I’m not angry enough to mosh, and I’m definitely too old, short and weak, so when that started, it felt like pure madness. But my discomfort faded and I enjoyed the show. After the group went on that we were there to see (No Bragging Rights) we stepped outside for some air. There was a guy standing a few steps in front of the top step. As we ascended from the basement, his aloneness practically yelled, “Marc, come talk to me!” So he did. He had just moved there not too long ago from Wisconsin and didn’t really know what was in town. As they talked about the show, he shared that what the singer said about suicide really resonated with him and he began to cry a little bit. They talked about faith and Marc shared the gospel with him. Then the final act went on stage and we were herded like cattle back inside. I say that, but there were really only about 30-40 people there and I’m sure at least 15 of them were members of other bands. After the show, we hung out for a bit but nothing was really happening so we bounced.
Friday was a bit more eventful. We walked around downtown to see what we could find. One of the places we went was a bead shop. Marc was talking to the girl behind the counter who was telling us that she used to have cancer but because her Grandma has a direct line to God (jokingly), she went back to the doctor and it was gone! How awesome!
From there, we kept walking. After a while, we turned back so we could move the van before our 90 minute limit expired. We passed by this guy who looked totally bummed out. Marc said hello in passing and he said hi back, but when we were just past him, he turned around and asked if he could use our phone. “I just bumped into my ex-wife and I need to call my sponsor. I’m afraid I might do something stupid,” Larry shared with us. He sat on the ground in the middle of the sidewalk while he called, but no answer. So we walked towards the van while Marc talked with him. He had just spent time in prison for what sounded like beating his now ex-wife. He didn’t really have a faith but because he was Sioux-Apache, he leaned toward the Native beliefs. They talked for a good 25 minutes and it went ok, but as soon as we drove away, he started walking back towards where his ex was. Sigh.
Next we decided to walk around the park that was at the end of the main street. There weren’t really very many people there, but one guy, Chris, was on his way out as we walked in. He believed in God and went to church, so when Marc asked if he would get to heaven and why, he replied with, “I’m not really sure. I hope so. I know it’s not by works. I know what you’re getting at.” So that was cool. It was good to hear that he was on the right track, but he did seem in a bit of a rush, so off he went. We continued through the park and stumbled upon a skate park! Sweet!!
There was one dude sitting on a concrete block off to the side, probably catching his breath because he didn’t look like he was done for the day. We got to talking with him, just “shooting the breeze,” as Marc would say. We did get to talk about the Lord with him-he said that he used to go to church but at a certain point, just stopped believing in God and, subsequently, going to church, mostly because he just needed more facts. I asked what kind of facts he wanted and I shared a bit of Bible science with him, but he wasn’t really sure what to ask about. We also got to share a bit with his buddy who was sitting next to him. He was from Anaheim and had been raised going to church but at some point stopped as well. It was truly an awesome conversation with the two of them.
While we were talking with them, Pastor Seth and his wife, Tanya, and their 3 kids showed up. Turns out they have a skate park ministry! They go there every Friday with pizzas, water bottles, and sodas to give to the kids. They aren’t pushy, they give out tracts with the drinks, and talk to the kids if opportunity allows, but they’re not out there yelling or forcing anything upon them. The way Seth explained it was that, “we’re doing what we’ve found to work-we’re just showing the kids love.” And it’s true! And awesome! The kids seem to respect them and appreciate their presence there.
Marc talked to a few more kids while we were there, and when the pizza and drinks were all gone, we packed up. The family invited us to dinner, so we headed off to SmashBurger with them for some great fellowship. They blessed us with dinner and we even got fro-yo afterwards! I love me some fro-yo. We gave them a tour of our van, and that was that. We headed to Walmart to bed down for the night. Or so we intended. It was MISERABLY hot that night. I swear if we had enough money at the time, we probably would have went and gotten a hotel room, it was that bad. At 11:00 at night, it was 81 degrees outside, with no breeze, so in the van it was WARM. And yet, here we are, we survived.
In the morning, we headed off to the church to help with things around the church. We cleaned and got the storage unit ready to convert into a gym, amongst other, smaller tasks. They fed us Subway for lunch which was refreshing and oh so delicious. Once we were done, we didn’t have anywhere to be until 5:30, so we headed back to the park where we talked to the kids the first day. Marc was having a jam session with Lisa’s son, Paul, who was a great guitar player. That took a good chunk of time, then we were off to the other park for another church outreach where they pass out chips, juice, and tracts to kids and families at the park. The goodies went pretty quickly, but Marc walked around with a guy from the church, giving out the most important goodie, the gospel. (I know, I’m cheesy.)
Sunday, of course, brings church. We hung out for a little while afterwards and talked to these two new girls, Andrea and Jenny. It was a great conversation, especially once we discovered that they were scientists! How refreshing to hear from people who study that they can think for themselves and see the discrepancies in too many scientific theories.
After church, we stopped at the store to get some groceries with a gift card we had been given (thank you mucho) and then went to get some gas on our way to our next destination. As we pulled in, this guy yelled out from across the parking lot that he liked our huge Jesus Saves sign. When Marc went in to pay for the gas, they got to talking, and talk they did. For a LONG time. At least an hour! These 2 guys were on a cross country trip rapping about Jesus, kind of. They believed that there were many missing chapters from the Bible and that when Jesus was on earth, He had a meeting with some people in India where they all agreed that as long as they had faith in something they could go to Heaven because they were sincere. After a while, I got out to see if he needed help, but he was doing great. Eventually, we had to get going so we could eat dinner before church, so we exchanged numbers and headed out.
On Sunday nights, Calvary Chapel Fargo doesn’t have a regular service-they pretty much pray, wait on the Lord, and give room for the gifts. Marc brought his guitar and did some music. It was a blessed night indeed. God moved through many of us and spoke to my heart, giving me confirmation on something I had been praying for direction on. What a good God!
On Monday morning while I was at the gym, the first guy from the skate park texted us and wanted to get together before we left. SWEET! Nobody ever texts us to meet up! So we made plans for the next afternoon. The rest of the day, we prepared to leave. I did laundry and we read a fair amount. I researched a little bit more of the “facts,” in case that was what he was going to ask about, and we chilled out. We did go for a walk in the evening to get out of the house and seek out an opportunity, if there was one to be had. We didn’t come across anyone, so we finished up our studies, and that was Monday!
We woke up on Tuesday and said goodbye to our awesome host family then headed to our meeting. We ate at a place called Drunken Noodle, which was so delicious! We also had a really great conversation. We talked a lot about God and a lot about life. He mentioned that he had had a pretty privileged childhood but now there were several “hiccups” in his life that he wasn’t really sure how to deal with. He began to wonder if what we were telling him was the answer. Please pray for him and his family, especially that he would come to know God, but also that he would have peace in his heart through the issues he’s been experiencing. We know that Jesus gives peace that surpasses understanding, but it’s a question of resting in him. One of the coolest parts about meeting up with him was to see the seed we planted. We know that the main part of our ministry has been seed planting, but we got to water this one as well and see it start to hopefully take root. We’re definitely hoping to get a call from him soon saying that he’s ready to go for it.
After lunch, we said our goodbyes to him and to Fargo and off we went on our way to Montana!

North Dakota!

the venue

the band

the skate park!

the awesome family we stayed with and 2 of their 3 awesome dogs!

South Dakota! #41

Oh South Dakota, or as I like to say, state #41. As we get closer and closer to the end of our trip, expect to hear in every state what number it is and how many we have left! Seven! So we honestly expected Sioux Falls, South Dakota to be a lot like Wyoming-a vacant ghost town where we couldn’t find a soul, but it was actually the opposite! I would say it’s probably the size of my hometown, Moreno Valley, CA.
Let me just start by saying, that we did not make it to Mount Rushmore. Sad day indeed.

So anyways, we left our previous state of Missouri, St. Louis to be exact, on Wednesday morning, August 28^th around 8:15 am and made the drive all the way to Sioux Falls, SD, just over 600 miles.

this was our route, as well as it can be
drawn on Paint by a non-professional

We finally arrived at Calvary Chapel Sioux Falls at 6:50 pm, a mere 10 minutes before church was due to start. It was hot, I was a liiiiitle bit cranky, and it was yucky humid outside, but I was glad to finally be there. We were welcomed warmly and greeted kindly, and we took our seats. The whole time during worship and even the message, there were about 8 kids sitting in the front row causing all kinds of a ruckus-whispering to each other, passing notes back and forth, and just not paying any kind of attention. I thought to myself, “Where are their parents? Why doesn’t anyone say anything to them?” but almost as soon as I did, I knew that this would be one of those times were I was going to be a jerk for thinking something, that there had to be some sort of circumstance that I was unaware of, so I tried to put it out of my mind and focus.
After church, we hung out for a minute and talked to the pastor, Tom Yount, and then a few of the guys from the church, Quinton, Josh, and Michael (but everyone calls him Mickey). They gave us direction on where we could go to find people and they kind of gave us a rundown of the city and what to expect. And then I learned about the kids. South Dakota is home to the top 3 poorest counties in America, with a 4^th in the top 15. Most of the reason for this is because of the Indian reservations. For whatever reason, these reservations are worse than the typical ones with the amount of gangs, violence, and, sadly, suicide. In South Dakota, the percentage of people who attempt suicide is 150% higher on the reservation when compared with non-natives. From what we’re told, everyone on “the res,” as they say for short, knows someone who has committed suicide or at least attempted it, whether it be friends or family members. For a lot of them, even off the res, life is bleak. It’s quite uncommon for kids to have a father in the picture. There is, many times, no discipline and the kids do whatever they want. This is where the church comes in. Since Pastor Tom took over the church a couple of years ago, God gave him a vision to reach out to the natives and really embrace them in the church. A transportation ministry was born and every week before church, Quinton and Mickey (not sure who else) drive around and pick up whoever wants to come to church. This is what we witnessed on Wednesday-people in the church that have a heart for the lost. They give up their time and their gas to get these kids to church, even when some people would prefer they not be there.
That night, they invited us to stay at the house that they rent. As we got there, Josh took us inside while Mickey and Quinton drove kids home. We walked up the stairs to the main house and saw a guy laying on the deck. Josh invited him in and he sat at the table while he waiting for Quinton to get home. There was a family in the living room who had gotten there around 3 am the night before. Apparently their apartment got flooded and they needed a place to stay until Friday. We walked out and went to the small house where Josh lived, and Marc asked about all of the people. He responded that most of the time, there is someone sleeping on the deck or below the porch. Quinton has done so much ministry with the homeless in the past that they know they can come sleep at his house if they have no place else to go. As for the family, they had no way to validate their story and they knew there was a possibility they were lying, but they gave them until Friday. How awesome, to serve the poor despite their motivation, even if they’re lying or abusing your niceness, it’s up to the Lord to judge the intent of their heart-it’s up to us to be obedient to the Lord and His word, so when it says in Isaiah 58 to bring to your house the poor and to clothe the naked, they do it. Mickey and Quinton got back and we sat around while they told us more about the city and their ministry to the kids and the natives. It was awesome.
On a less spiritual note, Josh had rescued a batch of baby bunnies from the lawnmower. It looked like their mother had abandoned them, so he picked them up and now they were chillin in a box in his living room. They were so small that they literally fit in the palm of my hand! Of course, I was super excited because I was about to get a new pet! I named him Walter Bishop and started researching how to best take care of him. Unfortunately for me, everything I read said to release them close to where you found them and that their mother had likely not abandoned them. I still pondered keeping one, but apparently cotton tail bunnies don’t ever really domesticate, they just get irritated and are bad house pets. At the end of the night, we released them back outside where they were and hoped that their mom would come. In the morning, most of them were gone, so hopefully they’re doing well.

look at how little it was!

Thursday morning we sat and studied for a bit before heading into town. The first place we went was Falls Park. In case it’s not obvious enough, it’s a park that has waterfalls in it. I would imagine that the city is named after the falls or perhaps the falls after the city, who knows. Either way, we were down there walking around, taking pictures, and looking for opportunity. There were 2 guys walking on the opposite side of the falls, where we had already been, that Marc really wanted to talk to. They looked like Cali people actually, so we started making our way up and around to get to them, just as they started walking away. So we walked after them for a few minutes, but they got away. Soon after, we seemed to be done at the park so we waited to ride the free trolley. As we did, an older couple told us, “we like your sign,” speaking of our Jesus Saves sign in the window of our van. We only got to talk to them a few minutes, but once again, we met a woman pastor. It really makes me wonder what does she teach when it comes to 1 Corinthians, or women being submitted to men. Now, don’t get me wrong, I know that submission is a taboo topic that people don’t really like to talk about, but that’s usually for one of two reasons. One, they don’t want to offend people. Solution-the Bible is offensive to those who are perishing, it just is and it likely always will be. Nobody wants to be told what to do or to do things differently, which brings me to my second point. Two-you’re not willing to be unbiased and do what the Lord has put in place for you to do. I know it can be hard, but the Bible says what it says, and one of those things is that man is the head of woman, just as Christ is the head of man. I would rather answer to Marc for my misdeeds than Jesus, so I’d say we got the better end of the stick, wouldn’t you ladies? So how this woman can be in a position to be the spiritual head of man, I do not understand. Nearly immediately after she told us her position, the trolley came so we said goodbye and boarded and took a tour of the downtown. We didn’t get off-Marc just wanted to get a lay of the land, and it was getting pretty close to evening by this time, but we did get to talk to one lady on the bus. Her name (I think) was Annie, she attends a local church there in town. We talked to her for a few minutes before she got off, then we continued our trolley ride back to the van. We went back to the visitor’s center to use the restroom one last time before we took off and when I came out, Marc had, of course, found someone to talk to. She went to the same church as the lady on the bus and said that she knew the Lord but was backslidden at the moment. Despite going to church and having 3 near death experiences, she just wasn’t walking the way that she should have been and she knew it. From there, we got in the van and had some food, then as we were driving off, we saw a mini RV that had this sticker that we used to drool over. It’s a blank outline of the United States where every state was outlined but with no writing. As you go to a new state, you put the colored sticker on the map of where you went. It wouldn’t be as cool to have now, but we REEEEAAALLLLY wanted it back in the beginning. Anyways, Marc got out and went to ask him where he got it from. Had I known what was coming, I would’ve gotten out, too! The couple who were travelling was Jewish but not really practicing. Marc shared about Jesus and they talked about differences, but they had a very relativistic approach to life/God. Eventually, I got out of the van to meet them but they were just ending their conversation to go walk their dog, so we took off.

Welcome to South Dakota!

Falls Park, Sioux Falls

guy on a buffalo! (youtube it)

statue time

That night, Pastor Tom and his wife Wendy had us over to stay with them. As we made our way to their house, we heard this guy yelling in our direction. Marc couldn’t understand what he was saying, so he slowed down to hear him. “Let me get a ride to the bus stop,” was essentially what the guy said. I looked at Marc like, “What the heck, who does that?!” But we let him in and started driving him. Of course, Marc began with the 20 questions. He, too, said he was a believer but was looking for a good church in the area. Marc told him about Calvary and then we got to the bus stop. What a strange encounter indeed. Then it was off to the gym then to Tom & Wendy’s house.
On Friday we headed back to Falls Park to once again take the trolley, this time to meander around downtown. As we waited for it to arrive, we found ourselves talking to a couple from out of town. That’s the nice thing about touristy places-you automatically have a normal, noninvasive icebreaker question to ask. “Are you guys from around here,” started the conversation. Nope, they were just there to ride the bike trails, which spanned about 25 miles around the city and were well known for being gorgeous. We told them a bit about what we were doing and asked them if they go to church. They do, so we got to talk about that for a little bit. By this time we had boarded the trolley and were at our stop, so as we said goodbye to them, they said, “hold on one second.” The guy reached into his pocket and pulled out a $50 bill and gave it to Marc. How amazing is our God?! Look at how awesomely He takes care of us. We never have to ask for money or even allude to it with people, and God puts it on the hearts of strangers to provide for us to continue what we’re doing.
So we walked around their downtown strip for a little bit. It was mostly touristy shops and things, nothing overly exciting, although we did go into and Irish gifts shop, where we talked to the owner (I think) for about half an hour. He told us stories of Ireland and answered questions that I had as to the stories behind certain symbols. It really was a super awesome conversation that made me desperately want to know more about my heritage.
Around 2 o’clock, we headed out of town about 15 miles to a music festival called Life Light. If you’re familiar, it’s similar to Spirit West Coast, except its a little bit bigger and it’s FREE. That’s right, it cost $0 to park, $0 to get in. Of course, the vendors charge you an arm and a leg for everything, but if you bring your own food and water, you’re set! It’s actually the country’s largest free Christian music festival. They used to hold it in an abandoned water park, but when they outgrew it, someone graciously donated ACRES of land. If I had to guess, I’d say that had at least 20 acres. They have enough space for the main stage, which on the final night will draw about 130-150,000 people, then another less popular but directed at the youth stage that gets plenty of people, and about 3 other, smaller stages. All that, plus two large structures where the merch is set up, a strip where all the food vendors are, and then backstage areas, and parking for everyone. The place is just massive! So we walked around for a bit then headed over to the prayer tent to ask if we could be one of the prayer people. They invited us back at 10am to take the small training class, so we had the rest of the night free. We walked up and down the vendors, checked out all of the causes, and hung out. As we approached one booth, Marc told me to read the back of this shirt. It said something like, “55 Million Shot Down Before Delivering Their Cargo. SAVE THE STORKS.” We got to talking to the people at the table and what they do is seriously amazing. They’re a fairly new non-profit organization (2 years old) that raises money to build buses. What is so special about these buses? Well, they’re NICE on the inside. They do the interior with all leather, there is a bed, a massage bench, a restroom, 2 chairs and 2 TVs. The point of all of it is to promote life. How, you ask? They park their bus outside of an abortion clinic and as women go to walk in, they kindly invite them in their bus to have a free sonogram. That’s right, their bus has sonogram equipment. As they give the woman a free sonogram (or pregnancy test), they share with them the love of Jesus and about the options that they have, to parent or to have their baby adopted. One statistic that really stuck out was that 84% of post-abortive women felt as though abortion was their only option. The Storks program is there to let them know that that isn’t true, that they will support them, and they do! Because the buses, once finished, are given to a crisis pregnancy center, the women who work it are local and can stay in contact with the pregnant women. Amazingly, three out of five women who go into a storks’ bus outside of abortion clinics, choose life. What a great testimony love can be. Because they’re only 2 years old, they only have 3 completed buses right now, but are always raising money to build more. Check out their website, even buying a shirt helps fund the cause. http://savethestorks.com/
After spending a good amount of time with the storks, we walked around and watched some bands perform. Marc was pretty excited to see For Today, a Christian hardcore band that seriously brings the gospel to the shows that they put on. Flyleaf was playing after them, but we didn’t stay for most of it because I didn’t want to deal with fighting traffic after it was all over. On the way to drop off Mickey and Josh who had been abandoned by their ride, we made a pit stop at this restaurant called “Fryin’ Pan,” which we had driven by the day before and I told Marc, “Man, I wanna eat there.” See how good God is to us? Mickey was gracious enough to buy our food, so we hung for a good little while and then went home.
Saturday was back to LifeLight. We got there around 10:15 (oops) and went through our training seminar. Then it was off to the secondary stage, where we spent a huge chunk of the day waiting. Our job was to sit under the tent and listen to whatever was being said from the stage, in the event that someone needed prayer, or they did an alter call, we were there to follow up. Most of them didn’t do an alter call and the ones who did didn’t send people over to us, but we were able to walk around a bit. Quite a few people came into the tent throughout the day, mostly to get out of the shade, but that opened doors for us to talk to people. I probably got to start almost as many conversations about Marc, but his always seemed to be more fruitful. For some reason, he has that weird thing about him where he really knows exactly the right question to get into people’s lives. I just don’t have that, as much as I try. But the day went awesomely-he got to talk to a few people who told him that they were in sin, so, in love, Marc rebuked and corrected them and they always thanked him for it and said something to the effect of, “I needed to hear that.” God is faithful, as always. What a mighty God we serve! On the way home, there was a crazy awesome lightening storm! There was literally constant lightening for the whole time we were driving home! It was beautifully stunning.

Sunday morning brought church, of course, and it was awesome. Pastor Tom taught from Mark 12 where the Sadducees tried to trick Jesus by asking him about the resurrection which, of course, they didn’t believe in.
It kind of reminds me of a common skeptics question nowadays. Many people will ask questions like, “What about the people who live in the bush and have never heard of Jesus?” Well, if they were really concerned about them, they would be converted and go be missionaries to them.
Anyways, shortly after church was over, we headed out of town with Josh & Mickey to Mickey’s parent’s house where we helped them with some construction they were doing on their house. I suppose destruction would be a better word, but we ripped up some carpet and I worked on scraping up the glue while the boys hammered up tiles and scraped that glue off of the concrete. It wasn’t the hardest work I’ve ever done, but it was far from easy and we were glad to help. Not to mention the delicious food they fed us! Mmmmmmm mmmmmm!!!!
So Mickey’s parents are super awesome! We spent a long time listening to their stories, mesmerized by the awesomeness! They spent 13 years travelling the country, if I remember correctly they were hitchhiking hippies for Jesus, but their stories were great. They said something that really struck a chord with me-they have a hard time with “church people,” if you will, because they spent so long being completely sold out for Jesus-He was their life. They lived and breathed to serve Him, so to go from that kind of mentality to the typical church go-er mentality was rough. Don’t get me wrong, I know that there are plenty of awesome people who go to church and I’m definitely not trying to ruffle feathers, but I noticed the same thing. Back in September 2012, we made a trip home for 3 weeks. While we were there, I noticed that nothing had changed, but I had. I had spent every day of the past seven months relying on the Lord for my very existence. I couldn’t eat, drive, or buy anything unless God provided for me. It was the way it was and I enjoyed it. I started every day with the Lord because if I didn’t, my day did not go right. I needed my marching orders or at least to check in and it made me so close to the Lord in an amazing way. Then I went home and was reminded of how life was for me when I was there. I hung out with friends A LOT and didn’t really do much for the Lord. I woke up whenever I wanted and usually had something to do right off the bat, which didn’t leave the relaxed time that I usually had to sit and take my time with the Lord. Well, I did have time, but I didn’t prioritize right. There were other issues, as well, but I don’t feel like going into all of that. Bringing it back, Mickey’s parents were awesome, but he was pretty great, too, so that’s to be expected.
Monday was a kind of chill day, for me anyways. I worked on my blog and uploading pictures and things. Marc had asked Tom if he knew a good mechanic because we had a belt that was making a noise, so they took off to go get the oil changed and look at the belt. After an hour or so, they came back, oil changed, and thankfully the belt was good and didn’t need replacing. We did, however, have a big problem-we needed new tires, badly. A lot of the wires were showing through and it would have been impossible to drive to North Dakota, which we were supposed to be doing in 2 days. Let me preface the next part of the story by saying that I normally don’t talk about money-I don’t like to at all because I don’t want anyone to think that we’re asking for money or hinting that we need it or anything, so please don’t, but for this story, it’s vital.
So Marc came home and told me that we needed tires. Pastor Tom called a friend of his who sold tires and he found us some very lightly used tires for $100. At the time we had $110 between our 2 accounts and $50 in our pocket. So technically we could afford it, but that would leave us with $60, not to mention that we had a bill coming out of our bank account for $40 in the next few days AND we needed at least $75 worth of gas to make it to North Dakota. We were just about on E. So really, we didn’t have any money to spare for tires, and yet, we needed them before we could go anywhere. BUT, if we went anywhere, there was a good chance we wouldn’t make it, especially now that we’re back on the West Coast, where states are HUGE! As Tom was calling around, I told Marc, “Why are you having him call? We don’t have the money for that right now.” He replied, “Well we need tires.” And I said, “How are you going to pay for them?”
As Tom got off the phone and told us that it would be $100 for 4 of them, Marc told him, “well, we only need two.” Then Tom replied with something like, “just take 4 of them, you’re not paying for them.” And that was that. I don’t know if Tom paid for them or if his friend just donated them or what happened. I think it’s better to not know so they still get their crowns in heaven, but what a blessing. I couldn’t help but smile at God’s goodness. It’s seriously crazy this whole time that we’ve never asked for money, we’ve never had to ask for anything, but God gives us what we need, sometimes before we even have to ask. So Marc and Tom took off to take care of the tires, and I sat around doing I don’t know what.
On our last day in South Dakota, we weren’t really sure what to do, so we headed to a nearby park. There wasn’t really anyone there, but Marc practiced his guitar and I crocheted. We got up to get ready to leave, and as we walked towards the van, we noticed a man who had ridden his bike over and was sitting alone at a table. Marc talked to him for at least half an hour. He believed in God but had a fickle relationship, so Marc explained some things and encouraged him. He even emailed Marc the next day to say thank you! What a great encounter!
From there, we went on to another fallback hangout, the mall. There were next to no people there, but as we rounded a corner, there was a guy sitting with his head down on the table. Marc likes to ruin people’s naps, so went and talked to him. He was a believer but had a similar story to the first guy-he just wasn’t really walking the walk. He seemed in good spirits when Marc left him, so that was pretty great.
A little while later, Josh and Mickey invited us out to dinner where we had an awesome time of fellowship and some stinkin good Indian food. They were great guys and awesome brothers. So we said goodbye to them and went back to the house to do laundry and spend time with Tom and Wendy on our last night in South Dakota. And that was that! The next morning, we packed up, stopped off at Wendy’s place of work where she blessed us with some bread and granola, and we were off to Fargo, North Dakota!

St. Louie, Missouri (yes I know, Misery, as everyone says)

Welcome to Missouri!

I’m not sure what I expected from St. Louis. Marc expected it to be run down and dangerous, seeing as it’s usually in the top 5 cities around the country for crime. We got there on a Wednesday, as you can read in my last blog, and were pleasantly surprised. Despite the fact that I was sick as a dog on Wednesday night, we had a pretty wonderful time. We met some new friends who were familiar with our pastor back home. They took us in, which was awesome because they gave us an escape from the heat and sweat shower (aka humidity) going on outside. It was funny, during the 2 months that we were at home recently, we were out and about and somebody mentioned something about the humidity being really high that day. I couldn’t help but laugh at loud. I, too, used to be blissfully naïve of true humidity-then I got to Texas, and most states east of it. How people do it, I just don’t know.

Picking up our St. Louie adventures, we spent most of Thursday recovering from the night before. I wanted to go to sleep at 10/11 the night before because I was so tired, but ended up being up until 2:30 (ish) because I was so sick I couldn’t sleep. Needless to say, I was exhausted. I guess I’m not so young anymore! (Weird.) Marc spent a good chunk of the morning calling different hospitals and looking things up online to see what our options were, and eventually fell back asleep. By the time we finally got up and out of bed, it was an embarrassing hour of the day, but I was feeling MUCH better than the night before. We had some breakfast-I was terrified to eat anything because I thought I had gallstones-and then we headed out to see what STL had to offer. Our first (and turns out, only) stop was the most famous landmark in St. Louis-the arch! It was definitely larger than I expected! At the base, each side measures in at 54 feet and tapers down to 17 feet at the peak of the arch. We didn’t ride up to the top, it was $14 or something like that, which would be enough gas to drive 100 miles. Weird when you think of it in terms of gas. Usually I say it would be 28 $1 burritos, which is a lot of burritos. So gas or burritos, it was just too much. We did go in the museum they had underground, but I started feeling gross again, so we headed back to the van. On the way, as we stood at the crosswalk, Marc struck up a conversation with a man who was walking the same way as us. After a couple minutes, I think he suspected what was coming, so he said goodbye and took off another way. That just about did it for Thursday.

Friday was much better and much more eventful. I had still been having slight cramps and nausea, although nothing compared to what it was. Marc was worried and a few friends back home told me I needed to go, so we found a walk-in clinic we could go to and went to see what was wrong with me. Turns out, there was no doctor on sight at the time. Instead, I waited to see the nurse who didn’t really do anything except check my vitals to make sure nothing serious was wrong. She said that I could come back to see a doctor, but that I likely just had a virus. I thought she was crazy, there could be no way that’s all it was, but I said thank you and we left.

We were told that University City was a good place to walk around. They have a street of shops and restaurants called the U City Loop, so off we went. There weren’t a ton of people, especially for a Friday, but we were able to stop and have a few good conversations. The first one when we were getting out of the van. There was a dude sitting nearby selling water. I think he was a homeless vet, but I’m not certain. He said he was a Christian and he knew the right answers to most of the questions, so Marc prayed with him and we were off. We got to one end of the loop then crossed over and walked back. As we did, there was a group of 3 guys (in jammies) wearing headphones and rapping along with the music that only they could hear. Marc was talking to one of them who used to go to church. He said that if he died that day, he would probably go to hell and the thought terrified him. Marc shared the gospel with him and what it means to live for Jesus.
Moving on from there, we kept walking for a bit, but our meter was up so we headed to the van. In a couple of hours, there was a home fellowship fairly nearby, so to kill time and try to find people, we went to a park nearby their house. There, Marc started talking to this kid named Jack who goes to church but had no idea how to get to heaven. After a bit of talking to him, his 2 friends came over. One was an atheist, the other went to church but also didn’t know how to get to heaven. That conversation was more about why we follow God and what He has done for us. Sometimes I wonder where the fault lies-we have all these people that we’ve met who go to church, but have no idea how to get into heaven, but that’s such a basic teaching. And if you don’t know, then what is the point of going? At that point, it’s selfish. I used to go to church because it made me feel good, it made me feel whole and cleansed, like I was right where I was supposed to be. I know God used that, but I was purely going for myself. It had nothing really to do with God. Sure, He was there, of course, and I enjoyed learning of Him, but I was spiritually blind. Just as James says, “For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror; for he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was.” And that was me, but I don’t think I was spiritually blind because God hadn’t opened my eyes-it was because I wanted to be. I chose sin and the “fun” that I was having over a fulfilling life of living for God. So perhaps nobody told me plainly what it meant to be a Christian or perhaps they did and  I didn’t want to hear it, all I know is that now it is our job to make sure that if people want to live in disobedience, it isn’t because nobody has told them of the saving grace of Jesus, that cleanses us from all of our sin.

After talking to them, we were a bit late for home fellowship, but we went and were welcomed warmly. We read and discussed out of Proverbs 1, and then it was off to bed.

The next day was, once again, a sweaty oven, and we, mistakenly, chose to spend the day outside. Awesomely, St. Louis has a free zoo, so we walked around that for a little while until we realized that it was too hot and nasty and not really a great place for sharing. As we walked back to the van, we came across a free art museum, so we mooched their A/C to cool off. That got old quickly, so we left.

Kaylah's giraffe

bald eagle!

baby elephant!!!

Sunday was, of course, church. Pastor Dave Fitzgerald taught from Judges chapter 4 and made some very interesting points. Two of them were as follows:

1-sin can’t just be put to the side-it must be put to death. How true of a statement-when we leave our options open, we tend to fall back into sin, but Romans 13 says to make NO provision for the flesh. We won’t fall into a sin if it isn’t an option.

2-God didn’t call us to fight a cultural war; He called us to fight a spiritual war. I couldn’t agree more. We are to be more concerned with Miley Cyrus’ salvation than her dance moves, President Obama’s salvation than his policies, our boss’ salvation than his treatment of us, and our friends’ salvation than whether or not we offend them. If these people are truly saved and walking with the Lord, then all of these issues will work themselves out because our God, who began a good work is faithful and just to complete it. So pray for those people who offend you and are bad role models, who you vehemently disagree with, who treat you badly, and who make you feel alienated. Pray for them, when they’re saved, they’ll remember your witness and thank you for it. Trust me.
 After church, we talked to a few people at the church. For some reason, the vast majority of people there (or at least that we talked to) were from Cali or had lived there at some point in their lives. From there we took off to the Festival of Nations, aka the International Food Festival! They had more than just food, but food is, of course, the most interesting part. From what I heard, this was the first year that admission was free, which is my favorite price, so off we went. It was PACKED. There were so many people there! We walked up and down scoping out what food we wanted to try. They had a lot of options that I didn’t expect from Iranian to Burmese to Afghan to German and even Romanian! Of course they had all of the usual international foods, Mexican, Chinese, Thai, and Greek. Two foods that I was interested to try that they didn’t have were Irish and French. Oh well, so it goes. We surveyed every table carefully, then made it to the end and turned around to make our decision. While I pondered the most important question of the day, what to eat, Marc found a kid that he knew he needed to talk to. It was actually 2 kids, the first one that he talked to said that he was a Christian and called to be a pastor. The second guy, the one Marc was originally targeting, believed in God but other than that was very apathetic, with no concern for his relationship or walk. They talked for a bit, but Marc left it in the hands of the kid who was called to be a pastor.
We left them and decided on Burmese food. I got fried zucchini and fried rice noodles. The noodles looked much better than they tasted, the zucchini made up for it. It was so bomb! So we got our food then kept walking around and eventually stumbled upon the religion table. I didn’t intend to go and talk to them because I don’t like feeling like I’m picking on a religion representative, but there was a Christian Science table and because I’ve never talked to one of them, we (very innocently) went to ask them what they’re all about. Here’s what I found out before I got distracted: they’re very big on healing by faith rather than medicine, many of their members don’t believe in going to the doctor although that stance is not directly held by their church, and they don’t believe in heaven or hell. Just as they started getting into that conversation, my attention began to be torn between that and the table next to us-the Mormons. There were 3 people who had been at the Christian Science table before we got there who had now made their way one table to the left and were beginning to engage the Mormons. If you’ve read my blog before, you’ll know that I thoroughly enjoy talking to Mormons. That religion is actually what got me interested in apologetics, so naturally, my attention was torn and eventually I was lost from both conversations, so I just hung back and waited. In that time, one of the guys who was kind of the “ring leader” of the 3, if you will, stepped back from their conversation and asked me if I was religious. I told him I was a Christian and that began a conversation that I was pretty well over my head in. I had researched bits and pieces of it before, but not thoroughly or frequently enough to really be able to talk to him. Basically, he was an Egyptologist with an overall emphasis on Africa. When we asked him what his religion was, he said it wasn’t a religion but if he had to name it, he would call it the African Spiritual System. He had a lot to say about Jesus and different Egyptian “gods.” It was a lot like Zeitgeist-I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s where he got a lot of his information. I tried to keep it basic and come back to questions like what was the point of his “evangelism”, so to speak, and what does it matter if Jesus was black, and other questions, but never got any very clear answers. It was borderline frustrating, but then Marc came over and took over the conversation. He did a much better job than I was doing and hopefully got through to him with a couple of points that he made. Either way, I’ve got some crazy research to do in the upcoming weeks.

people for days!

not the healthiest, but it was good :)

From there, we went to fill up our water bottles, but Marc wanted to go back to the table and talk to the Zoroastrians to ask what their religion was all about. There weren’t any actually there, but there was a table for a religious center. There slogan was something like, “One source, many paths.” At this house, people come in and are helped to find the right religion for them that will ultimately help them worship what they believe is the same god. This isn’t the first time we’ve come across this relativist philosophy, but what caught my eye was a few of the symbols-the cross, the Star of David and the star of Islam. I could see a Buddhist or Hindu or Native American spiritualist agreeing with the “One source, many paths” mantra, but these other 3 were monotheistic religions that promoted that their way was the only one. Even more intriguing, there was a Mormon representative at the table. So I asked the main guy who was a Hindu, how do they encompass these other religions who, very blatantly, say that they are the only way, that you must worship how they say? He replied that they can include monotheistic religions as long as they don’t stick hard and fast to being the only truth. So I turned to the Mormon woman and asked, “Is that your feeling also? Even though Mormons are monotheistic, you leave the position of being ‘the only truth?’” She went on to say that technically Christians aren’t monotheistic because they believe in Father/Son/Holy Spirit are all God. This is the first time I’ve ever heard an LDS member admit that they are polytheistic and once she established that, there was little left I could say to her. Once someone who claims to believe in the Bible says something contrary, you no longer have a base in common to go from. So our conversation didn’t last very long.
As we walked away and towards the van, I looked around and just saw desperation everywhere. Women dressed in very revealing clothing because they didn’t realize their worth is more than the sideways glances that they get from dirty men, teens trying to find who they were by trying to be someone else, and vendors just trying to make a quick buck. The rat race man, and everyone just believed whatever they were told. My heart was hurting for these people and for myself. I felt like David when he wrote, “There is none righteous, no, not one; There is none who understands; there is none who seeks after God.” (Romans 3:10). There truly was none who sought the Lord. This was a lesson that I learned early on in our trip, that there was nobody who sought the Lord, nobody believed in God and those who did didn’t follow Him, but they chose what they wanted to believe and left out what they didn’t. I was very unsettled in my spirit as we walked out; I told Marc that I felt like I was the only one who believed the truth. Of course, that was foolish and I told him that also, but I just felt like everybody was so willingly lost and had no interest in serving the Lord or even knowing Him. So that was my Sunday!

On Monday morning, we woke up and went about our usual routine. As I sat to have my study, I read Romans 11:1-5, which says:

I say then, has God cast away His people? Certainly not! For I also am an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin. God has not cast away His people whom He foreknew. Or do you not know what the Scripture says of Elijah, how he pleads with God against Israel, saying, “LORD, they have killed Your prophets and torn down Your altars, and I alone am left, and they seek my life”? But what does the divine response say to him? “I have reserved for Myself seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to Baal.” Even so then, at this present time there is a remnant according to the election of grace.

 I was in awe. Basically, Elijah felt like he was the only one who sought after God, but God showed him that there were many, that God hadn’t given up on us because of His great grace. What a great feeling, to have hope restored. Thanks be to God who gives gentle reminders instead of slaps in the face.

From there, we kind of farted around. I went to the gym and then we visited the science center but there weren’t too many people there so after walking around for a bit, we took off and headed downtown. St. Louis has a specialty that sounded right up my alley-toasted ravioli. Marc isn’t particularly a pasta fan, but if a region has a food they’re known for and either we can’t get it anywhere else or it’s just way better there, his heart is set on it. This is why we had to stop for cheese in Wisconsin (no complaints here), wings in Buffalo, cheesesteaks in Philly, pizza in NYC, and lobster in Maine. Needless to say, we stopped in for some toasted ravioli, but they only had meat ravioli. Marc thought it was fantastic. I don’t really like meat ravioli but I tried a small bite and from what I had it was pretty good. So if you are in St. Louie, you must have toasted ravioli. After dinner, we had time to kill before our plans that night, so we walked up and down the U City Loop. We ran into a couple of guys that Marc stopped and talked to. One of them was on his way to turn himself into the authorities and go to prison because he didn’t show up for his court date. Man, what a reason to do time, huh? Because you didn’t show up somewhere? If you think about it, pray for him, his name is Kenny.
Then came the fun part of the night-game night, at the game store. I didn’t really want to go, not because I knew I was going to be surrounded by nerds (not that I mind them at all), but because I don’t like feeling like I’m infiltrating someone else’s world, which is exactly how I felt going there. We played a game called Last Night on Earth, where our objective was to survive the zombie apocalypse until morning. It was essentially capture the flag but there were 4 items that had to be protected through 10 rounds. We fought the zombies through dice rolls and could battle them with the cards that we picked up. It was probably the closest to Dungeons and Dragons that I’ll ever come (except now that I’ve said that, I’m sure I’ll end up playing it), and it was actually very fun, much more fun than I expected. We got to share a little bit, but the nature of the game wasn’t very conducive to conversation that didn’t involve strategy and “What should I do?” questions, namely from me, so talking was kept to a minimum. All in all, I’m glad we went, but by the end, I was sleepy so it was off to bed.
Tuesday was our last day in St. Louis, we drove around a couple of different parks but it was so hot & humid that nobody was really out, so we headed indoor to the mall where we could mooch off of their A/C. It was a huge outlet mall, a lot like Ontario Mills, so we walked around there for a couple of hours. The only conversation that we were able to have there was with 2 workers at GameStop. I don’t know where everyone was, but it was terribly slow there, also. We were having terrible luck finding anybody, so I went to the gym and then we headed back to the house to do laundry.
That just about sums up our time in good ol’ St. Louie. We are so blessed to have met our gracious hosts, Jean and Joel Belding. We spent a lot of our last night there talking with them, they were super nice and great to be around. Pray that the Lord would bless them, they really were awesome people. 

Jean & Joel, our awesome hosts and new friends :)

Ohio to Missouri update/my illness/God is good!

Sooooo, we have finally left California. Three weeks ago, but who's counting?

We left Cali on August 2nd after a full 9 weeks of being home. Our time there was nice, we were able to reconnect with old friends, visit family, evangelize, and serve at the church. One of the best parts was spending so much time with our cousins and our little goddaughter who is getting so stinkin big. Good times. So in my last post, I updated you on why we were home for so long-my great grandmother passed away and we were waiting for her funeral before we could leave. Because of legal reasons, it kept getting pushed back and we didn't actually have the funeral until about a month afterwards. The week we were getting ready for the funeral, we were preparing to leave when we checked the mail and there was Marc's jury summons, for another 3 weeks after that. We were beginning to question whether or not God wanted us to finish the trip or if it was time to call it. Then we got our answer!

one of the many hikes we went on:

Danny Boy's epic jump

the boys epic tree battle

isn't she beautiful? I got to see this pretty girl a lot!

and hang out with the Ortega ladies!

and some awesome friends!

we served at VBS with El Capitan and Los Admirales

and my awesome uncle took us on a helicopter ride!

and lots of family time :)

Father's day with my dad and father in law

On Wednesday the 31st we got the call that we were needed in Ohio again and on Friday the 2nd, we were off! Remember our friends who were adopting from Ethiopia? After nearly 3 years (I think), they finally got assigned a child!! They had to go to meet him and go to Ethiopian court to gain custody of him, which left us to be nannies to their 3 other children for the ten days they were gone. Luckily, their kids are awesome and we love them! They're 9, 11, and 13, so old enough that I didn't want to pull out all of my hair.....just some of it. :) Anywho, check out their blog to read more about it! Also, they have to go back sometime in the next 3 months to have their embassy court date and pick him up and they still need travel funding for that! http://talesoftherogi.blogspot.com/2013/08/court.html Check them out! 

So they went to court and they came back and we left! It was about an 8 hour drive to get to St. Louis, Missouri where arrived just in time to eat some food and then get to church. I would say when it comes to meeting new people I am a bit of an introvert-I more like to blend in the background then have any attention on me. Well we walked in and there were about 15 people there. I told Marc, "looks like we're not going to just blend in". If you know Marc, you know he was definitely ok with that. So we sat down with not a whole lot of time before service, but the couple people around us started asking us questions, what brought us into town, where were we from, etc. When we said we were from Moreno Valley, the lady in front of us says, "Isn't that John Milhouse? He was my favorite teacher at Bible College." Small world! Many times people think because we go to a Calvary in California, it must be Raul's church, or Chuck's church, or someone very well known, but most people have never heard our pastor's name before, so to hear this woman in such a small crowd say that she knew him, was really cool. Especially cool because after study, her and her husband invited us over to stay the night at their house. That was such a relief  because the low for the night was supposed to be 73 and it was humid, then add 10 degrees to that because of the trapped air in the van. It wouldn't have made for a very pleasant night. It's one of those where you lay perfectly still on your side to minimize skin contact with anything and we're throwing down if your pinky touches mine because it's just too dang hot for that. Needless to say, Marc was very grateful for the offer. I was too, but Marc was giddy. 

So all that day, I had been having abdomen pain, just short little sharp, cramps about once every ten minutes that lasted for about 10 seconds. Throughout the day they got closer together and a little bit worse, until that night around 11 when I tried to go to sleep and my body was not having it. I was starting to get nauseous and that's never pleasant. Long story short, the pains were getting REALLY bad, I was in and out of the bathroom. If I didn't know any better, I would have thought I was about to deliver a baby or something. It was intense. Throughout the night, when my head wasn't over the toilet, we tried to figure out what was wrong with me. A friend suggested gallstones and when I looked up the symptoms, I had nearly every one. It suggested that when your gallbladder is attacking you (actual term used-and for good reason) that you can take aspirin which should ease your symptoms. Praise the Lord, it did and I was finally able to make it to bed around 2:30. I am beyond blessed that the Lord brought us to the church and these awesome people took us in. As much as last night sucked, it would have been 20 times worse to be stuck in the Walmart bathroom all night. God is so good to give us what we need!

So today was not so bad. I had little pains here and there, a knot in my stomach nearly all day and I'm terrified to eat anything and make whatever it is worse, but I'm doing good. We looked into clinics and will probably check one out tomorrow. Throughout the night last night, Marc wanted to take me to the hospital but if it was gallstones, I would probably need surgery and without insurance, that adds up quickly, but God is good and He will see us through. 

So that is our update! We should be here for about a week, as we usually shoot for, and then it will be off to South Dakota. Stay tuned!

Where have we been this past month?

I thought it might have been too long since I wrote a blog post and you lovely people might be wondering where the heck we are! Not only that, but what the heck has been going on! I'll do my best to be brief and detailed, if that is even possible, but here we go.

Last you heard from us, we were in Kentucky at Derby time. It was a lot of fun, but that blog has already been written. Nearing the end of the last post, I told you about an opportunity that had presented itself. We have some friends in Ohio who we had just visited between West Virginia and Kentucky who texted us and asked if we were interested in coming back for a couple of weeks so that Marc could work with a mutual friend doing contractor type work. Usually we take opportunities that are dropped in our lap so we prayed about it and didn't hear the Lord say no, so back to Ohio we went. Here is the last paragraph of my last post:
[This] still leaves us in the same boat as the beginning of this post-39 states down, 9 to go, which, hopefully, will put us home in July still. However, like I tell most people that I talk to, our original plan had us coming home in January 2013 and obviously that hasn't happened, so we'll see what God wants us to do between now and then.

That was a month ago. Am I in Missouri, state #41 yet, you ask? Nope. Two days shy of our two weeks in Ohio, we got a call from Marc's mom at 8 am. Considering the time difference, it was 5 am her time so instantly we knew that something was wrong. She told us that in the night, his Nana (great-grandma) had passed away. She was almost 92 and went in her sleep, which helped give us some peace of mind. She had lived a good, long life and we were happy that she went peacefully. At the same time, Marc immediately started trying to figure out a way to get home for her funeral. She was his oldest living relative on either side, and he really wanted to be there for her. Day after day passed by and we just didn't have the money to fly or drive home. I searched for hours looking for something cheap enough that would at least get Marc home for a week, but to no avail. A couple different people offered to help, but the tickets we found were at least $700 per person. We couldn't ask anyone to pay that, so we said thank you anyways and looked at it as a closed door. Marc was pretty bummed, until Wednesday, the night before the funeral, one of his family members back home said that he would fly us out. To get a cheaper price, we were going to book one way tickets each way and a different airport each time. We bought our tickets to fly from Columbus to Long Beach, then once we got to Cali, we were going to buy our tickets to go back, from LAX to Dayton. Four different airports, but it was the cheapest option. And we were off!
We landed at 11:45am on May 23rd and the funeral started at 2:00. Marc's uncle (on the other side of the family) was kind enough to pick us up from the airport, take us to lunch, then back to his house to be picked up by the parents on their way to the funeral. I was so happy that Marc was able to be there with his family, knowing how much it meant to him.
Later that day at the reception, I got a call from my dad. He told me that my great-grandma wasn't doing good and that they didn't think she would make it through the night. Geez man. We only had one way tickets and hadn't bought our return flight yet so we decided that we would push it back and stay what we assumed would be an extra week for her funeral. At 89 years old, my grandma had always been a fighter. I honestly thought she'd live to be one of those people who was 110 by the time they died because there was never anything wrong with her. She was always so great and seemingly healthy. 
Life at home went on normally, but it was weird to be back. Marc and I always talk about how things are going to be when we get back and what life will be like, so now that we're home, but not permanently, it's very strange. We feel like we're in limbo-we're not making any progress in the trip, but we're also not beginning our life. The more time that has gone by, the easier it has gotten, but still, it's weird. 
Time passed with no news. My grandma had said that she wanted to die at home rather than in a hospital, so for the first few days nothing happened. Later, some news came to light that required that my grandma to be taken to the hospital. I won't get into all of the details, but we are currently in the process of getting my grandma's caretaker charged with abuse and neglect. Please, if you can, keep that in prayer. I went to the hospital on Thursday to see my Grandma and to make sure she heard the gospel. She was unconscious so she couldn't respond to me, but the doctor said that she could most likely hear me. I talked to her for a little bit then sat there for about an hour. One of my very best friends, Heidi, was kind enough to go and sit with me. It helped to have her there.
That weekend, with still no news, I went up to the Ladies Retreat with my church. On Saturday evening, I received the call-she had passed. All I can do is hope and pray that she received what I said to her just a few days before. With my grandma gone, my dad and uncle began making arrangements. Due to circumstances with her caregiver, they weren't able to solidify any plans until some court proceedings had passed. Finally, they were able to make arrangements and planned on hopefully having it on Friday the 7th or Monday the 10th. Because we had all seen her before she passed, they weren't going to do a viewing or a service, just a burial with a quick 5 minute service. My dad asked me if I could get a pastor to just say a quick 5 minute message before they buried her. Because it was only going to be more of a "send off" then a service and it was far away, I offered for Marc or I to just say a couple of words. I mean, we could talk for five minutes, that's no big deal right? He accepted, and it was a plan. Until it wasn't. The next day after another court hearing and another meeting with the funeral home, the funeral was pushed back yet again. I can't specifically say when it is, but by the time we leave, we'll have been here for almost a month. And what's more, now we are actually having a service...that I am giving. Holy moley am I nervous already. I have been to maybe 5 funerals in my life and now I have to perform one!? In front of my family?! Please pray for me because I know there are some things that the Lord wants me to say that my family probably won't receive, but He lines things up the way He does for a reason, so I guess we'll just have to see what happens.

And that is the update of where we are (California) and why we have been here for so long. 

One more thing-the guy that Marc was working for in Ohio wants to buy Marc's Blazer, so we're driving it out there after the funeral. That is definitely a prayer request! Thanks!