Whew! What a whirlwind the past few weeks have been! Sorry I haven’t updated our blog recently- I’m ready to get back in the saddle with this blogging thoughJ! I’m trying to decide where to begin? Let me start with a brief overview of recently & then go further in depth- here’s our lives lately: July 15-17th we headed to Kentucky to visit the Creation Museum with our dear potluck group as a last ‘hurrah’ before Ryan & Alys left for med school and we were living in Little Rock. July 18th-27th we were at “CSU”, which is the biennial Campus Crusade for Christ (now known as ‘cru’) conference held on the campus of Colorado State University. July 28-31st we were back in Illinois for a few short days spent with family & of course the beautiful wedding of Mike & Kenzie- which I was beyond honored to be a part of. This week we have been re-adjusting & on Sunday Seth leaves for Honduras, working with FamilyLife, through the 14th. The 16-18th is mission training. We both leave for Costa Rica as part of FamilyLife on the 21st & return the 28th. Whew! I think that just about covers it! Now for the details…..
Creation Museum: We had been talking about this as a potluck for sometime. A while back we officially set the date & made the reservations. We all met at the hotel on Friday night and went to the creation museum on Saturday. Words can’t describe how thankful wear for these dear and precious friends. They have been one of the sweetest things we’ve known. I knew going into the weekend it was going to be so bittersweet. Sweet because we were able to spend a whole weekend with these awesome friends- but bitter because I knew it would be the last time in a long time we’d all be together. I think that mixed with the emotions of just recently moving (4 days earlier) and the unknowns ahead made it an emotional mix of feelings. We did have a blast, though! We will miss them so so much but will cherish the times we’ve had and the hopes of the future times we’ll have!
CSU: I have been debating of how to even put this week into words. I don’t know if I can. I wish I could because I want so badly for you to understand it & feel it & experience it with me. I’ll start by saying, this waaaay exceeded any expectation we had. This is a conference held every other summer on the campus of CSU (hence why we call the conference ‘csu’). All US Campus Crusade (now Cru) staff attends. There were about 5,000+ people in attendance. We were so beyond blessed to be a part of something so awesome & special. I’ll try to break it down:
The drive out: on the way back from Kentucky we stopped at my parents hours for a quick supper & got to see my little brother, Chad, for a bit. He told us about this truck stop on I-80 that we couldn’t miss. We decided to drive to somewhere in Iowa that night & spend the night. On the way we’re looking for this truck stop when all of a sudden a “WORLDS LARGEST TRUCKSTOP” sign appears- I yelp “We have to stop!” & so we did. I imagine the looks on our faces when we walked in the front door looked something comparable to the movie “willy wonka & the chocolate factory”- when the winners of the contest walked into the chocolate paradise- haha! This place is amazing- it has a dentist, a barber, restaurants, showers, a museum, everything! Very well worth the stop. My suggestion- if you haven’t been there & you’re planning a trip on I-80 out in Iowa- stop there. It’s worth your time J. Anyways, we stop at a hotel that night & hit the road again in the morning. Somewhere in the middle of nowhere, Nebraska I notice our air conditioning is actually blowing hot air, not cold air like it’s created to do. We ignore it for a bit & about 5 minutes later- it’s getting hotter. Hmmm. We decide it’s broken & that’s not a good thing considering it’s 95+ outside. Seth calls to a repair shop (found from our handy gps) and we head that way- Sidney, Nebraksa. As soon as we get on the off ramp I exclaim “What is that smell? Is that us?!” Seth replies “I could be, I’m not sure” (trying as hard as he can to keep his frantic wife calm by not telling the whole truth!) Again I exclaim “what’s that sound?! Is that us?! Are we going to explode?!” Seth replies “I don’t know what that sound is, but it doesn’t sound good”. I exclaim “but are we going to blow up?!?!” (I’ve watched too many movies I guess). Seth looks at me “No, baby, we’re not going to blow up. I want you to remember the memories we are going to make from this.” I know I tend toward the dramatic side, however when you’re in the middle of NOWHERE and don’t know ANYONE and it’s 95+ degrees and your car is sounding like a marching band with a nice hot rubber/metal smell- making memories are the last thing on my mind! We pull into Sidney & it literally looks like we are in an old wild west movie. We pull into the auto repair shop & a very very nice man takes a look at our car and tells us it looks pretty bad. Great- just what I love to hear! We tell him we are headed to Ft. Collins & ask if it would be safe to drive it there. He said it should be safe to drive but we CANNOT use the air conditioning no matter what (I won’t got into technical auto mechanic terms because you might laugh @ my attempt to explain what was wrong with our vehicle). So with a quick change of clothes into some shorts & the windows down we made our nice, warm, breezy drive to Colorado & made it safely- or so we thought! The next morning seth gets up to take our car to a local Honda dealer & they tell us we are “lucky” we made it. Apparently there was more wrong than we knew. Let’s attribute that to the hand of God’s goodness & provision! Amazingly, the Honda dealers gave us a rental car for no charge while they fixed our little problem car. God provided abundantly what we needed & safely!
The Conference: If I could sum our time up in one word it would be AMAZING. But since I’m a girl of many words I’ll explain. Tuesday morning we registered & walked into moby (this is csu’s arena where met everyday). Boom- all around us there are people. People laughing, talking, catching up. People who really really love Jesus. 5000+ of them, all in the same room. We took our seats & all of a sudden some of the most beautiful worship we’ve ever experienced began. And thus began our week. That morning Francis Chan (author of Crazy Love, Forgotten God, & Erasing Hell) spoke to us. He also spoke to us the next morning (Wednesday). I’m not even going to try to explain the talks at this time because I can’t do justice to the power of the Spirit & how mighty & alive & active God was working. Here is the link to watch any of the main sessions we heard during the week, if you want to listen to them- http://www.ccci.org/csu/index.htm. It’s hard to try to describe the week without going into detail- at the same time, this is a blog post not a book & I want to try to summarize. We spent our mornings worshipping & listening to speaks & in the afternoon there would usually be a list of seminars you could choose from to attend. Then we would meet back at moby in the evenings for more worship & a speaker. Usually after the evening session we had some form of “entertainment”. For example we got to see Tenth Avenue North, Tim Hawkins, David Crowder Band, the movie ‘Courageous’- which comes out in theatres in September (You should go to see it opening weekend- this determines how long it stays in theatres!!). We also heard talks from Dan Allender, IJM, and tons more! Seth & I were able to meet a lot of FamilyLife staff- which was great since we hadn’t met too many yet. We had a free day on Thursday & Seth & I went up to Rocky Mountain National Park & hiked. I forget how beautiful the mountains are until you are actually in them. We packed a lunch and hiked for a day & then drove to grand lake for dinner. The week ended with an incredibaly powerful-Spirit led- talk from David Platt (author of Radical) & some beautifully, powerful worship. I wish I could explain it better- but it into more vivid detail, but I’m not sure how. We were so so blessed with such an amazing week! Here's some pictures of our day spent hiking:
I think I’ll end this post here. Next time I’ll talk about the beautiful wedding of Mike & Kenzie. I’ll also update on how things are & once we get our house ready- I’ll post pictures of it J!
In the mean time, please pray for Seth’s trip to Honduras this next week. (This is a huge God story if you want to hear it, I’ll explain it sometime). Originally we both were going to go but with life being so crazy & us still being in boxes we decided it would be best for me to stay home & settle this place & for Seth to go. Seth will be traveling with another FamilyLife missionary named Gabe. Gabe has overseen Latin America for sometime & has been leading trainings in different countries there. Pray for their trainings- pray for those are being trained how to start a marriage & family ministry in their churches/small groups/neighbors & pray for the team that is going to be leading these trainings. Pray as God prompts you to pray for them. Also pray for me as I’m back in our new home by myself. I’m planning on keeping busy & possibly plan to visit my family in texas at the end of the week (since they are only a short 6 hour drive away now!). Pray for our marriage- that God will use this time & distance to unify & grow us- not isolate us in business.
Until next time here’s a new favorite song of ours:
Love you all!!!
thanks for posting! love you guys - and I am actually going the northern route to California next Sunday and will look for the truck stop :). love and prayers!
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