4 weeks!!!!

Last Saturday, we were still at the cabin. We went out as a family just to have fun. We were heading to another hike when we saw this little grove of bamboo along the road. It was so cool looking, that we stopped to look at it. It is much bigger than it looks in this picture.

It was kind of spooky inside. But it was really cool.

We went to the hiking trails, which were through open fields this time. There was a lot about the history of the Indians that once lived there.

Liam went over in the grass while we were walking and just sat down. He started looking at the map and telling us where we were and things like that. It was so cute!

We met some "locals"...

The next day (Sunday) we got up really early to drive 2 hours to Sweetwater Tennessee for a church service. We were sharing at the Calvary Chapel there.

We drove through some really windy roads (not a lot of wind, a lot of turns, you know, whine-dee...). It was nice seeing the sun rise, and you could still see the dew in the air in the open fields. More and more beauty.

This is Calvary Chapel Sweetwater. Right after worship was finished, the power went out. They had only been in this building for a couple of weeks, and this had already happened to them before. I really appreciated it, though. It makes me think of how things will be in the mission field. You never really know what's going to happen. You never know what kind of crazy obstacle is going to try to hinder you. It was great, because no one missed a beat. It really isn't about all the fancy things we can have to make a nicer church. As long as you have the main ingredients (the Holy Spirit, the Bible, and willing vessels) you have all you need to have church. You can take away our chairs, you can take away our air conditioning, you can take away our electricity and the roof over our heads. But you cannot take our Lord away from us.

Towards the end of the service, Pastor Brian was referring to the scripture that says "silver and gold I do not have, but what I have, I give. Rise up and walk" and boom!, the lights came back on! It was pretty awesome.

On our way home from Sweetwater, I tried to get this picture. The land was cool looking. It reminded me of scenes from the Lord of the Rings movie. just a silly thing.

On our way home we stopped at this place called the Fields of the Wood. It's a place you can go for free that has a bunch of things you could look at from the Bible. This was the 10 commandments on the side of a hill. There was also a replica of Jesus' tomb. That was my favorite thing. Stopping here was a good opportunity to let the kids get out of the car for a little while and just wander around playing on the hills and things.

By the time we got back to the cabin, it was getting pretty late in the day. Another beautiful sunset.

This was the back of the cabin. We left there on Tuesday and headed to Knoxville Tennessee. It was a huge blessing to stay at the cabin for a few days. It gave our family some much needed rest.

Tuesday, we went to stay with some friends of ours near Knoxville. That day, Robin got sick. He was throwing up before we left. I only had to pull over on the side of the road one time for him. Then, we met with pastor Mark Kirk to talk about Wed. night. He offered for us to do the whole service for Wednesday. That was a huge blessing. I prayed and prayed for Robin to get better. He was pretty much in bed all morning on Wed., but by the afternoon, he was up and around. Praise the Lord, everything went just fine. I even got to lead the worship, which is always a huge blessing for me. Thanks, pastor Mark.

Thursday morning we left from John and Tiffany's house. They had moved up here from Florida about 3 years ago. It was good to see them again.

Next stop, Georgetown, Kentucky.

Driving through the mountains is interesting sometimes. I guess the clouds were low that day, or something. It was neat to be driving through them.

So, we made it to Kentucky. We are staying with Robin's cousin, Daniel, and his wife, Dixie. Thursday, Robin met with the pastor from Cane Run Baptist Church. That's Dixie's dad, and Daniel is the worship leader there. I practiced with Daniel's worship team that night. I'm going to participate in the worship on Sunday. I'm excited. Daniel and I have never played together before. It's extra special since we're family. Pastor Charles is going to let us do the slideshow and share for a couple of minutes, too. God continues to open and close doors. It's good.

3 weeks on the road

So, we left Monday morning from Hickory and set out for Troutman, NC to stay with some other friends of ours.

I love the trees.
Lost again... We have gotten lost a few times on our journey. I guess it's bound to happen... Thank goodness for cell phones!

(I SAID, EAT YOUR MUFFIN!!!)

This is Todd Burden. (sort of looks like a tall Brian Vander Kodde...) He was my youth pastor way back when I was a youth. We've kept in touch with him over the years. I prayed with him to receive Christ. And, he married Robin and I. It was really good to see him and Lisa, his wife. They have 5 kids. They are getting ready to go into the ministry full time doing a basketball outreach. He wrote a really cool devotional book through the eyes of basketball. For more info, I can give you his email, (which I can't remember right at the moment...).


Kilaine and Liam were giving big goodbye hugs to Crista Rose, their 2nd youngest. We left Wednesday morning to head out to Fayetteville NC, which is all the way on the east side of NC.


pretty flowers

4 hours later, we arrived at Calvary Chapel Fayetteville for there Wed. night service.
warming up and doing a sound check


Joey, the pastor showed us all these sponges cut into the shape of a dove. Somebody in their fellowship had them made at their work, and they put them out to see if anyone liked them. If there was interest, they were thinking of selling them to raise money to buy tracts. I thought they were pretty cool. I guess, if you want some, you should contact Calvary Fayetteville, NC at stephen@ccfay.com

That night, the church put us up in a hotel, which was a huge blessing. Thank you so much. We had originally planned on going back to Todd and Lisa's that night, that is, before we realized it was 4 hours away.

I don't know what Liam was doing. I put the camera up over my head and took a picture of him. He just happened to be doing this. So silly. Just like daddy!

On Thursday, we drove over to Brasstown, NC. It was suppose to be about 6-7 hours away, but we got lost. We made some wrongs turns that put us pretty far out of the way. This was one area we drove through that got really smokey. It smelled like fire. But we never saw anything burning. It was like this for a while.

The drive was beautiful, thankfully, because it ended up taking us about 9 hours to get there. Part of the problem was we lost the directions. Then we got lost in Asheville. Then we went way off the highway which may have set us off for about an hour or so. I guess it's all part of a road trip. We finally got to where we were staying... a cabin in the mountains. A friend of ours let us stay here for free for 5 days. It's nice to have some family time.

On Friday we decided to go on a nature walk. We stopped and asked directions from some campers. They had a horse. As we were pulling away, Kilaine said, "that's the closest I've ever been to a horse!" So, we went back and asked if we could see the horse. The lady was very nice, and let us pet the horse, and told us all about it. She had rescued it from a neglectful owner. She even let the kids sit on him. They were loving it!

This is right after the horse sniffed Kilaine's head. She didn't seem to mind.

We made it to the hike and went up along a waterfall. It was so nice. I would love to be there each morning to do my Bible study and time with the Lord. It's good that He meets us wherever we are.

It gets tiresome driving, and visiting, and sharing, and driving some more. It is good to stop once in a while and have some family time. I suppose that's the whole idea of a Sabbath. Thank you Lord, for making the Sabbath. Sometimes, we need to be reminded to take it. We are having a wonderful time of refreshment here.

Saturday was our last day in South Carolina. It was nice to see Robin's parents, and to get to stay in one house for a whole week.

Robin, Jerry, Judee, Liam and Kilaine

So, we said our goodbyes and headed up to Hickory, North Carolina.

the first mountain we saw...

they have such beautiful flowers all along the road

When we arrived in Hickory, we hung out at a grocery store for a little while to wait for our friend Scott to come and show us the rest of the way to their house. This tree was right there, and it was so amazing that I just couldn't resist getting a picture of it.

We got up bright and early Sunday morning and drove about and hour and a half to Calvary Chapel of Asheville. It was beautiful driving through the mountains early in the morning and seeing the sun rise. I must have taken about 20 pictures. Yay for digital camera!

This is where Calvary Chapel of Asheville meets. It was nice to share the slideshow and a few minutes with the church there.

Here's our little brochure table set up. Everyone loves the goat toe shaker. And the chicha morada candies are a big hit, too. I pray that God would use our brochures to remind people of us and to pray for us and for the peruvian people.
After church, we went out to lunch with the pastor's wife, and a new friend, Dennis, along with all of our kids. It was great to talk about missions with them. You can't tell by looking at the beautiful sunny picture here, but it was really cold that day. It was probably about 48 degrees or something! I was freezing cold. I'm such a Floridian... Liam was happy as could be, he found a really big stick to play with. such a boy!

This was the gigantic tree we were standing beneath. North Carolina should be renamed "tree country." It sure is beautiful here.

After lunch, we went back to Hickory to stay another night with our friends, Scott and Nicole Reuscher. That night, some of their friends came over and we had a time of worship and prayer together. It was really nice. Scott and Nicole just moved to North Carolina. They have it on their heart to start a ministry reaching out to the lost. He is thinking of doing an outreach to skaters. It just so happened that we had a template to build skateboard ramps in our van. We just made them at a church in South Carolina from their ramps and were taking them to a church in Kentucky so they can do a skate outreach. So, Robin got out the Christmas wrapping paper and made some copies for Scott with some detailed instuctions on how to build them. It's so cool how the Lord knows our every need even down to the detail. It's really cool to be a vessel in which the Lord uses to meet some needs. Really, He just needed "morons like us" to take the templates to some other believers. God can use his people in so many different ways.
So, it was really nice staying with Scott and Nicole (they are in the middle), and their 4 kids. Thanks for all the encouragement and hospitality!!

Liam is really happy eating some pancakes on Monday morning. It was really cold while we were there. I think it got down to about the 20's at night. Brrrr!