Day 18

We all slept in today. There is no where that we have to be today and we are looking forward to just being able to relax and maybe have so fun. After our quiet times, we headed out to breakfast at U.S. Egg. While we ate we talked about some things that we could together. Ryan has spent a lot of time here and I used to live here so we knew that we could think of something. I think Ryan and I were talking about cars or something when he remembered.....F1 indoor kart racing. It is an indoor go kart track here in Phoenix. The guys seemed to be the most excited about the idea, but we all said that it sounded like ti would be fun to do. After we ate we slowly made our way to the F1 location, and after making 2 pit stops and getting lost....I mean turned around 1, we arrived. There are 2 tracks inside of this very large building along with video games, pool tables, a Pit Crew challenge, and a small restaurant. We took a look around at the facility and all the different things that they had to offer and then talked about who wanted to race. Ryan, Dave, Danley, Jackie and myself(Josh) would be racing against each other. We signed up, headed to our driver briefing and got suited up. After stopping and picking out a helmet we were ready to go, so we lined up and waited for our names to be called. As they called us, we filled out to our karts and got strapped in and ready to race. We were off, the Kart travel down the track at a top speed of 45 mph and there are many turns to navigate along the course. My favorite part though was when Ryan bumped me into the wall as he was passing me. It was a lot of fun, and it didn't rally matter who won.........but just for the record, in our group Ryan was the winner. After the race we got back in the car and headed back to where we are staying. Chad offered to buy us dinner, and he ordered pizza for all of us. After dinner Dave and myself drove the girls over to a hotel room and helped them get their bags up to their room. Tomorrow we will be teaching one of our last two seminars. We are hoping that we have the chance to teach this seminar when we get back home as well.

Day 17

Sometimes we get so focused on our schedule and on where we need to be next and just getting out of the town we are in to get to the next one that we may miss what God has for us. Well today started out as one of those days. We were all set to get out of this small little town and down to Phoenix, when we began to run into problems. First we were going to just right on the freeway and get gas a little further down the road when we missed the freeway on ramp. So we decided to head to one of the gas stations still in town, once there we noticed that the left rear tire on the Trailblazer was low on air, upon further inspection there was a nail in the tire. So we headed over to a tire shop just across the street, got our tire fixed and headed out again. But now we thought that we should check the air in all the tires on both vehicles. When we were done we circled up, joined hand and I began to pray, thanking the Lord for our time here in Holbrook and asking His blessing on the day that we will do the work that He puts before us.....when it happened.........I could feel that someone had walked up to us, then from behind Ryan came this voice "What are you guys doing?" Standing there was a man and from the smell he had been drinking for a little while. I looked at him and said, "we are praying......would you like to join us?" We made a spot for him in the circle and he took my hand and Dave's hand. I prayed for our new friend and for the rest of the day and ended the prayer. Ryan turned to the man and asked him how everything was going. And he started to tell his story, as he spoke with us he said that he needed to confess so things but he didn't want to do it in front of all these people, he said this 2 more times and we asked if would like to talk to just the guys. He said that he did and when the girls had left the circle he opened his heart up to the three of us. His name is Benny and he has been racked with guilt over sins that he thinks are unforgivable. We started to tell him that Jesus Christ came and paid the penalty for ALL sins 2000 years ago on the cross and if you come to Him, He forgives you of ALL your sins. We spoke with Benny for a little while longer, gave him a bible and encouraged him to stop drinking and to read the bible. Benny thanked us for the time we spent with him and for the bible. We then all came back together and prayed for our new friend. With that we were on our way once again, but always looking out for those chances when God has someone who He wants to reach out to. As we drove Ryan and I talked about how God will go to great lengths to have us stop to minister to just one person. His love for everyone of us is so great that there is nothing more important than the soul of someone in pain and Benny was in pain and crying out to God today. Thank you Lord for allowing us to bring Jesus to Benny today. Our drive today was only 3 hours and we were in Phoenix. Tomorrow will be our last free day of the trip as it is coming to an end soon, with only 2 more teachings to go. Tonight we are going to an event called Element, where Chad will be speaking on what the Lord has been doing through him over the last year. Then we will have a chance to spend so time with Chad as we will be staying with a friend of his.

Day 16

Today has a strange feel to it, there is something different here, and we can't put our finger on it. There were somethings that we needed to get done today, laundry, some shopping and the like before we head over to the church. The Calvary there is smaller than the one we has just been to in Santa Fe but we were looking forward to teaching tonight. We arrived at had the chance to meet pastor Dean, he told us that we could expect around 20 people tonight. I think we all could feel that tonight was going to be different from the other time we had taught, and it was. Right from the start, things just were not working out the way they should have, we first started to have some technical difficulties, we couldn't play the promo DVD on their DVD player, then we couldn't get our laptop to plug into their projector. Finally we used our projector with our laptop, but when we played the promo DVD.........no sound. Then as Ryan and then Dave, and myself went up to speak, we all struggled with our words and remembering what to say. But we never freaked out or got worried, we all just waited for the Lord to help us, and He did. We never had to worry about what we were going to say, He had other plans for what was said, and over all it was very different from any other presentation we had done to this point, all of them have been slightly different, but this was very different. We answered a lot of question at the end and spent a lot of time after talking to many of those in attendance. We then spoke with pastor Dean for a little while longer and said our goodbyes. We were all very hungry so we headed over to Denny's by our hotel for a bite to eat. Jenn told us of a meteor shower that was going to be going on tonight, so we asked our waiter where would be a good spot to go and watch it that would be away from all the light. He told us of a road that leads out of town where there are no lights and we should have a good view of the sky from there. We headed out to the spot he had told us about and sat and watched for an hour or so. We did get to see a few of the "shooting stars" or meteors before we started to get too cold and too tired. We headed back to the hotel for a good nights sleep, tomorrow we are headed to Phoenix Az. for the last stop on our tour. Ryan's friend Chad is going to be there while we are there and we are all looking forward to seeing him again. He was in Poland at the same time that we were back in May and June of this year, and now he is in Phoenix at the same time...........hmmmm.

Day 15

This morning we slept in a little because we had just a 5 hour ride, once again, into Holbrook Arizona. But we wouldn't be teaching until tomorrow so there was no real rush to get there we were able to take our time. We checked out, and drove into downtown Santa Fe. It is such a nice old city, there were no really tall buildings. All the building looked like they had been there for hundreds of years, even newer construction was done to look like the older buildings. We spent some time driving around there and then stopped at a small cafe for some breakfast/lunch, then we were on our way, saying goodbye to New Mexico and getting ready to say hello to Arizona. The drive there was like any of the others, a lot of great scenery and a lot of vast open space. we have taken A LOT of great pictures, with so many of us having cameras, there are so many great moments that have been captured! We arrived in Holbrook with no problems and found a hotel right off the freeway, the Lord has directed us to all of the hotels that we have stayed in so far and each has been a blessing in it's own way. From great deals and free internet connections to free breakfast in the mornings, to the greatest, that is, opportunities to bring Jesus in to stay for a night or two. And this one was no exception, we really are not sure why we are here in this tiny little town just off the freeway, but we know that God wants to do something amazing here. We will be teaching tomorrow night at the Calvary here in town and we are all wondering what to expect, and we are seeking the Lord in prayer.

Day 14

This morning we are getting a very early start to get on the road on our way to Santa Fe New Mexico. It will be a 5 hour drive and we will be teaching there tonight, so we want to get there early to get settled in. The drive down was nice, once again we have clear skies, well mostly as we were leaving it is starting to snow, just barely. But not enough to even have us turn on the wipers. We pulled into Santa Fe early in the afternoon, found the church and got a hold of our contact. We were then able to find a hotel very close by, right around the corner in fact. After checking in we got a little bit of rest before heading over to the church. The church was very nice inside, we taught in the main sanctuary, we were able to use the sound system which meant that we would be recorded for the first time. We spoke with the pastor, Paul Skozzafava about what size of a crowd we would be having. He wasn't to sure of the size, but he was hopeful that we would get a good size. By the time we ready to get started there were 37 who had showed up. The sanctuary was large, defiantly the largest that we had been in to this point, and to be honest it was a little intimidating for some of us, which helped us to lean on the Lord and seek Him for the strength and the boldness. The Lord meet us there and spoke through each one of us, it fired us up and the crowd had quite a bit of involvement at this one. There were a lot of questions hat were asked of us and we were able to share them some of the things that were taught to us at HSE(Horizon School of Evangelism). After we ended in prayer we spoke with quite a few of those in attendance, cleaned everything up and headed out to dinner with the pastor and his assistant pastor. Pastor Paul shared with us some of the things that that church has gone through over the last few years and about how the Lord had put this area on his heart. Previous to Santa Fe, Paul was with Calvary Chapel Albuquerque. But after some things happened with the former pastor up in Santa Fe, the Lord called Paul up there. Since that time he has faced quite a bit of attack from the enemy, to the point that he has some pretty serious physical problems now. but it has only caused him to seek the Lord that much more. This trip has introduced all of us to some of the most amazing and humble men of God, serving in areas where so much help is needed, and they all have such confidence that the Lord will bring them all that they need. We said our goodbyes and headed back to the hotel room. What a wonderful night the Lord has blessed us with once again. There has been so much that He has been teaching me along this route, it has truly changed my life, I thank God for allowing me to come on this trip.

Day 13

This morning is Sunday and Lonnie asked us to come to Legacy for service and we are setting up our promo table and Lonnie is giving us 5 minutes to speak to the congregation about the school and about our road trip. After service we talked to several people from the church, said our goodbyes and got on the road as we needed to be in Colorado Springs that afternoon to teach at Calvary Chapel Rocky Mountain. It is just a short drive down to the Springs so we had plenty of time to get down there and check into our hotel before making our way over to the church. We are teaching a Evangelism class that meets on Sunday nights. This will be their last class of an 8 week program. We had just an hour tonight so we did a few things differently tonight. We shared more of our testimonies and our experiences in Evangelism. After the class we spoke with quite a few people there at the church about the school, they had a lot of questions for us and they wanted to hear about our different mission trips that we have gone on. Our contact there was Sean Rafferty, and when we were all down he took us out to dinner where he wanted to know more about each one of us and to hear what God has been speaking to us about on this trip. Sean spoke wisdom into our lives, it was great to speak to someone who has had so much experience in the ministry. It was a great time spent with Sean, it was very encouraging for so many of us.

Day 12

Each place we have been has very different and Denver is no different. Today is the first free day that we have had so for along the way and it just seems fitting that we should spend it here in Denver. After we all had our quiet time with the Lord this morning we made our way down to downtown Denver our first goal of the day was to grab a bit to eat, then go from there. We headed over to the 16th street mall and got lunch just in one of the food courts. We then decided that we would split up until dinner time later that day. The ladies were headed off to do some thrift store shopping and the guys would stay downtown and explore the urban Denver. Ryan, Dave and myself headed out to the side walks of the 16th street mall and walked in the direction of the river font park. The 16th street mall reminded me of Santa Monica, how there were shops on either side of the street and the street was closed to regular traffic. There were free buses that travel back and forth along the street. We ended up at river font park just before sunset and walked around the dog park there, everyone here in the city seems to have a dog. As the sun was beginning to go down and the temperature was quickly following after it, we made our way back over to the 16th street mall area. We took the free bus half way up the mall and talked to a few people on the bus. After getting off the bus we made our way to the other end of the mall. Near the end I stopped and spoke with a homeless man who went by the name of, "Charlie Brown". Charlie has spent the last 29 years on the streets of Denver and his face and body looked very weathered from all those years. He knew who Jesus is and what He has to offer, but Charlie didn't want to hear what I had to say about it. I prayed for him and caught back up with the guys. It was now dark and we were getting hungry, so we headed to meet up with the girls for dinner. We had dinner at "Sweet Tomatoes", which is the same as "Soup Plantation".

Day 11

Today Lonnie called first thing in the morning to check where we were. I told that we had made it into Denver around 2 in the morning and told him what exit we had gotten off. He gave us directions to get to the church office and he was going to meet us there in a little while. We arrived at the location that he had given us, and Lonnie was waiting out front for us. We all met him and he brought us around to the office, it was there that he informed us that we had stayed in the worst area of Denver last night and that the church was going to be taking care of our hotel for the remainder of our time in Denver. He also said that we would be staying at the Westin. I think it took a little while for it to fully sink in what pastor Lonnie had just told us. It was such a blessing for them to do that for us. We spent the rest of the day there at the office polishing up some thing for the seminar before we made our way over to the church. The night at Lonnie's church was great. We meet a lot of great people there and were really able to connect with so many of them. Lonnie took us out to dinner after we taught, and he shared with us the need that he has for the Denver area. As well as some of the things the Lord has been speaking to him about. There are some team members who are praying about possible opportunities here in Denver. After dinner we followed Lonnie over to the Westin and got checked in, we are staying on the 10th floor and have the best view of the Rocky Mountains. I am looking forward to this view in the morning.

Day 10

This morning Danley was in the lobby of the hotel waiting to toast a muffin when she fainted and fell and hit her head. She seemed to be ok when she sat back up, but we wanted to be on the safe side, so we took her to the Emergency room before we got back on the road. The doctor said that Danley was ok, she didn't suffer any damages from the fall, so we were on our way. Our route today takes us on Rt. 85 which is a single lane road that we will journey on from North Dakota, through South Dakota and into Wyoming where we will get on the 25 to get down into Denver. Along the 85 there is farm land for as far as the eye can see, and if you were to blink, you would miss the little towns that we pass through along the way. I remember seeing one sign that listed the population at, 5 of one of these little towns......wow, 5. The road was long and straight and once again we had clear skies all the way down, which made for one of the best sunsets we have ever seen. Traveling at night has been some of our favorite times, the Lord has blessed us with the chance to get to see His creation in ways that we have never had the chance to before. At one point on the road we pulled over when we had finished climbing up into the mountains of Wyoming and saw that there were no lights anywhere around us-it was completely black. When we got out of the car the night sky hit us like a load of bricks, we had never seen that many stars out, the moon had yet to come out so the only light in the sky was that from the stars. We stood at the side of the road just smiling as we looked up and into Gods great creation. We pulled into Denver at 2:30am and looked for the nearest hotel we could find, we checked, and went straight to bed. Tomorrow we would be getting contact with Lonnie Trujillo, pastor of Legacy Christian fellowship where we would to teaching the next day.

Day 9

What a great morning in North Dakota! The temperature today is 9 degrees. The water bottles that we left in the cars are now frozen, there is ice on our windshield and we don't have an ice scraper. There was just a little bit of snow today, nothing that really amounted to anything, but just enough to bring a smile to all of our faces. Tonight will be a teaching night and today will be spent going over any last minute details and spending time with God in prayer. Ron is going to be serving dinner to all those who are attending tonight and we will be there to set up and to meet more people before we get started..............Tonight the Lord spoke to the class here in Dickinson, we have seen God speak to each of the groups that we have spoken to in different ways on this trip. Each part of the country is different and God has used us in many ways so far, there is a definate sense of excitement about the rest of the trip as we have the awesome chance to really watch God work in the areas we visit. Good nights rest will be needed tonight, we have a long day of travel tomorrow, we are headed into Denver.

Day 8

Tonight we will be having dinner with Ron and his wife Stephanie. But in the mean time, there was some practice that we wanted to get in, as we would be teaching tomorrow night. We also had a little while to take a look at the town we were in, Dickinson was not very big and we were able to see most of it in a short amount of time. It was a good day, we were all able to get our different Power Point presentations completed. We headed over to the Hodson house for dinner, when we arrived Ron was just finishing up with the grilling of dinner. It was so nice to get the chance to sit down with Ron and his wife and to hear what the Lord is doing here in Dickinson. God has opened so many doors for ministry here for Ron and the family. After dinner Stephanie went over to the church(they live right next door) and grabbed the guitars for a time of worship with the girls. Soon we were all sitting around and sing worship. It was hard to tear ourselves away from their home and head back to our hotel room, but it was getting late and we needed to get back.When you are a part of a group that is traveling on the road there are going to be things that come out, and this was happening today. The Lord has blessed this group in so many ways, we have now spent the last 10 months with one another and there is no hesitation to talk to one another about issues we might be having. The level of communication in the group has been very good, but the enemy will try new tactics on this day. Tonight we had such a great time of prayer after we got back from dinner, we were able to see the attack from the enemy and rally around one another and help each other. Our relationships within the group are only getting stronger as we lean on the Lord and lift one another up. The more we realize that we have so much to learn, the more God is able to teach us. Praise the Lord for He is good

Day 7

Travel day. Today will be our longest day of travel so far. We are looking at 690 miles today, from Missuola Montana to Dickinson North Dakota we got our start at 7:30AM. The sun wasn't even up yet, we check out of the hotel, fueled up and got on the road. We were all looking forward to seeing the state of Montana in the day light. As the sun began to make it's way up on the horizon, the snow covered hills and mountains of western Montana came to life. We quickly saw just why it is called "big sky" country. As we drove on we slowly made our way out of the mountain area of Montana and made it out into the plains area. We had a lot to talk about as we drove, over the next few days the Lord would be doing some great things in all of the team. It is a great time in the trip. We made contact with the pastor of Calvary Chapel Dickinson, Ron Hodson. He gave us the directions to get to the hotel were we would be staying. He also told us that he would be meeting us there. Ron was waiting at the hotel for us when we arrived, and we had just a short time to meet him and for him to welcome us. He invited us over to his house the next day for dinner and a time to get to know us, as he and his family would be sharing what us what the Lord has been doing in the Dickinson area. We checked in around 8:30 that night got settled and met in the lobby to head to dinner, we were all looking forward to eating dinner and then heading off to bed, it had been a long day on the road.

Day 5

Today was spent in Everet Wa. working. I will post more later.

Day 6

Today we left Everett and headed down to Seattle for Sunday service and to meet one of the pastors there. We went to City Calvary and met with John Aydelott. After service we went to lunch, got a few shots down by the water and headed out. Today we would be driving to Montana, it would be the first of many mountain passes that we would have to go over. The view was amazing, and the drive was great. Traveling together in the cars has been such a blessing, God has been working on so many things with each one of us. And we knew that there would be more to come, as we will be driving over 1200 miles in the next 2 days. We stopped just before heading up the first mountain pass to buy some chains for the SUVs. We were told that we would be needing them as we head east over the mountains. But the Lord has been shinning down on us for this whole trip, we have had nothing but blue skies, even in Seattle! We got into Idaho at around 9:30 that night, we stopped to use the rest room in this little tiny town that looked like it was straight out of a Christmas card. It looked just like a little Christmas village. The whole ride there was nothing but clear skies, the whole night. We got into Missoula Montana at 1AM. We went straight to bed as we knew we would be getting up first thing in the morning to make it across Montana and into North Dakota by that night.

Day 4

We started today with an early breakfast where we talked about our options for the day. We did not have another seminar sceduled untill Wednesday of the following week in Dickinson North Dakota so we had time to work out some different things in the seminar. We had learned a lot from the first one that we had done and there were some areas that needed some change. We also needed to meet up with some contacts along our route to help establish our contact list for future use. We had an apointment with a Pastor in the area just over the border in Vancuver Wa. We got our selves ready, loaded up the cars and made our way back onto the I-5. We meet with a man named Glenn Webber for coffee. We were able to share with Glenn what God has been teaching each one of us both in our time at schooland here on the road trip. Ryan was able to talk to Glenn about what HSE is all about and share his own testimony with him in the process. After meeting with Glenn, he prayed for us and we got back on the road headed today for the Seattle area. We had an open offer to stay with Jenn Russell's Dad in Everet Wa. just north of Seattle and we were headed there to work more on our seminar and meet her dad. We were all looking forward to seeing Seattle and this would be the shortest drive of the trip so there was much excitment to reach our destination. As we aproached the city of Seattle we were climbing the hills just south of the city, Seattle began to rise up on the horizon as we aproached the crest of the hill. Opon reaching the top of the hill and headed down the other side the city was revealed before us, it was a great view of downtown Seattle from there. We got up to Everet in great time and met Jenn's dad Allen. It was great to see Jenn and her dad, they were both very happy to see one another. Allen welcomed us all into his home and made us feel right at home. It was great to be in such a comfortable enviroment were we could relax, and focus on what we needed to do. We were able to bless Allen and his wife Judy by cooking for them. Mac and cheese, hambergers and steamed brocholi was on the menu for the evening. After dinner and after haveing some quiet time for everyone, we headed out on a walk to the store as a group, it was a cold and foggy, but we just had a great time talking and being out in the fresh Washington air.

Day 3

Today we said our goodbyes to our wonderful and gracious host family, Pete and Rose Kim. We had a long haul ahead of us if we were going to make it to Portland by the end of the day. After stopping and stocking up on our suplies from Walmart, we fueled up and headed north, getting back on the all too firmiliar I-5. Our drive today was going to take up and away from the vally farm scenery we had become so used to and it to the mountains. Before leaving the vally floor we came to an area where there Olive trees and we stopped at a rest stop that was surounded by Olive trees. This will be the first of many mountain passes we will be twisting and climbing up in our 3 week voyage. This will be the first of many all day drives that we will be doing. The mountains are beautiful, like nothing I have ever seen before. As we aproched Oregon it was getting to be night fall, and it was begining to rain, but just ever so lightly. We got into Portland late that night and went to our hotel and straight to bed as we had agreed to meet early the next morning for breakfast and to talk about what our day would look like.

Day 2

We woke up this morning looking forward to what was in store for us. Tonight is our first seminar and we are planning on spending much of the day in preperation for that. We all had a few things we need to just put some last minute details on, and then we will be practicing our individual parts. After breakfast we made our way over to Panera Bread for internet access, and a place to get some work done. We got a lot of work done there and made our way over to the church, we would be teaching at Calvery Chapel Natamos, Pastored by Aaron Hemness. Aaron and his wife Bonnie and there two kids Trinnity and Noah were all at the chuch to greet us when we arived. The seminar was to start at 6:00PM, Aaron offered to lead worship to start off our time of teaching at the church. As we taught tonight we all felt the spirit leading our time and at the end of the time, we were haveing such great interaction with those in attendance. They all had so many questions and wanted to know more about our own experiences. They also share many of their own experiences. There were a lot of questions asked about the school, they wanted to hear more about it, and the different ways that it has impacted us. We ended the time with the church at 9:30PM. After talking one on one with a few of those in class we cleaned things up and headed out. Tonight we had the blessing of staying with a couple from the church who had offered the home to us. Pete Kim and his wife Rose brought us over to their house, after we stopped and grabed a bit to eat. We all sat in their kitchen with them fellowshiping and answering their questions. They were both very interested in our testamonies, and to hear about our experiences on our different missions trips. We had such a great time talking with them the time went by so fast that before we knew it, it was after 1 in the morning. We all felt very blessed for the Kim's amazing hospitality.

Day 1

We got our start today leaving San Diego headed to our first start stop in Sacramento. It took some cleaver placement of all of our bag, but we finnally did get everything to fit. The drive up the I-5 was uneventful, hitting only just a little traffic going through L.A. Along the way we passed by grape vines, orange groves, apple orchids, almond trees and field after field of farm land. It was quite a site to see farming on such a large scale. We arrived in Sacromento at 6:30PM Tuesday night. We checked into a Motel 6 for our first night, and went to find something to eat and somewhere to meet to discuse our plan for the next day. After dinner and a very productive meeting we were all looking forward to getting a good nights sleep.