The short version:
Visited cousins in Dallas Texas
Stayed with our friends for a week in Tulsa
Visited my old College in Hesston KS
Couchsurfed in Kansas City
Couchsurfed in St. Louis
Visited cousins in Memphis
Broke down in Vicksburg
Went to New Orleans
Visited family friends near Mobile Alabama
Camped on St. Joseph's Peninsula in Florida
Couchsurfed in Gainesville Fl
The Long Version: (starting with Hannah)
It's kinda hard to believe we have already been on the road for 5 weeks, yet on the other hand it does feel like we have been on the road for awhile. Not in a bad way, rather I feel like I'm in the groove of traveling and being on the move. I felt a bit scattered the first week or so but we stayed with friends in Tulsa for a week and it helped me catch my breath and get my "sea-legs." I will hit on some of my highlights from the past few weeks.
Our time in Tulsa was every bit as enjoyable as we anticipated...and we'd been anticipating it for a few months. It was great to reconnect with our friends, Luke & Kristy, who we hadn't seen since June of last year. I should mention that we met them during our training in South Africa last year. They are normal people with normal jobs so while they were at work we would walk somewhere in the city and see what we could see. Definitely the best part though was getting to hang out with them and being able to catch up and go beyond what one conversation can hold. We tagged along to the things they are involved in...basketball, pottery class, birthday party...and got to meet some of their friends.
Though it was a short visit we had a really good time with our hosts in Kansas City. They made us dinner, drove us all over the city giving us the driving tour (considerably more enjoyable than us wandering around the next day not knowing what we were seeing), made us breakfast, and the husband let me work out with him and took Caleb to shoot hoops. One of the things I'm beginning to enjoy more as we go along is showing up at a stranger's house and falling into conversation for the duration of our visit which is what happened with this couple. We spent less than a day together sharing life and about our lives and came away having thoroughly enjoyed each other.
I enjoyed our few hours in St. Louis but the highlight was Caleb experiencing frozen custard for the first time. If you haven't had it you are missing out. Puts regular ice cream to shame.
I don't know if I'd call this a highlight exactly but we did encounter some car trouble but when it was all over it was pretty cool to see how Father pieced it all together. As we made our way towards New Orleans we planned to camp out in the sticks outside of Vicksburg, MS but stopped in Vicksburg to get fuel before heading out. Thank you, Jesus #1. When we went to leave our car wouldn't start. It was late in the day so our car would just have to get towed somewhere and worked on the next day. Of all the gas stations we could have picked we picked one that was within walking distance of close to 10 hotels and about a mile from where our car was going to get worked on. Thank you, Jesus #2. And, the hotel we stayed in not only served breakfast but dinner as well. Thank you, Jesus #3. So, we stayed the night but when it came time to check out of our hotel our car still wasn't fixed so we decided to wander around the Civil War battlefield park across the street--not every day you pass time by wandering through a place like that! As it so happened, the route we took led us within 100ft. of where our car was. Thank you, Jesus #4. So we popped in to see what they found and the guy was just putting everything back together. We were back on the road within 15 minutes. Thank you, Jesus! So what started as a 'what do we do now?' ended with just a mechanic bill and staying somewhere different than we planned.
We originally planned to just stay 1 night with friends near Mobile, but we were enjoying ourselves so much we decided to stay another night. They live on a farm with a small pond right by their house and within minutes of arriving Caleb heard the pond had fish in it so he fished as much as he could. Morning and night and loved it. They let us do some work: Caleb mowed while I got to till the garden and plant some flowers and vegetables. It felt good to do some work!
From Mobile we drove down to the Gulf and camped by the beach. We hiked past the campground to a secluded spot 200ft. off the beach. It was beautiful! We could hear the surf and the white sand beach was littered with sea shells. The song line "Almost paradise!" kept rolling through my head.
It took awhile but we've finally found Spring and warm weather. For the past week we have been seeing azaleas blooming and here in Fl there are tons of fruit/vegetable stands selling oranges (duh), strawberries, tomatoes, you name it. Ah.
Right now we are staying with friends of our friends from Mobile (we are becoming professionals at finding free places to stay and feeling at home in strange places) in central Florida and are getting ready to head down to Haiti to see Naomi (my sis) on Thursday.
From Hannah
Now from Caleb
I've had a lot of fun these past few weeks...
Chronologically speaking- We enjoyed our time spent with our cousins in Dallas. They are from an older generation and have different perspectives on family history etc, which I enjoyed hearing about. They were a lot of fun.
Next was Tulsa, and like Hannah said before, it was great. She covered that well, but one story I want to put in here during that time was about this picture to the right. While Hannah and I were in India last year, I felt like one of the things God spoke very clear to me was, "you need to get healthy." Meaning to me that we needed to get healthy in our relationship with one another (God and me). Obviously He is healthy, so I need to really give him the time to get me healthy. Not try to do anything major, just be myself, rest, relax, let him love on me and really let him establish our relationship in health and goodness. Previously it had been a lot of "means to an end" type of relationship. Such as, yay, I love you God, I want to do so much for you and I know that if I spend time with you it will make me be able to do so much more and better etc. etc. etc. It wasn't about just me and Him, it was always clouded with other things... So for the past year, (and Im still in this season) this has been the theme for me. Getting Healthy. Letting God build trust, not trying to control my healthiness by doing all sorts of things I think I must do to be healthy, but actually let him be my Papa and take care of me. Learning to trust, etc. So the picture is of a card that was on the mantle of a random persons house that our friends took us to. Of course I had to snap a picture of it and of course it was just a nice little gift from Papa that told me, Im with you and I really am leading you. Oh how good that feels :)
Also while in Tulsa my mom called and told me that I had a great aunt that lived around their somewhere. She had an address but no number, so we decided to just go show up and see what happened. Ruby is my late grandma's oldest sister. She is 100 and for her 100th birthday she knit 100 scarves and gave them out to everyone that came. (of course we got one too, but she told me to tell my parents that if they wanted one, they had to come get them themselves) She reminded me a lot of my grandma and it was fun meeting her and her son she lives with.
After Tulsa we went to Hesston Kansas! Yep, the place I went to college for a year about 8 years ago. :) I hadnt been back since and I wanted to show Hannah the place. So I contacted some people that I knew of, but didnt really know and they let us stay at their place. On our way we stopped at my local hot spot and got cheesy fries (gut bomb). As good as I remembered!
But the highlight of our time in Hesston was staying with the Masons. They were great hosts and told us lots about the Tornado that came through many years ago, but the real fun was helping them out for their catering job the next day. I was able to learn about smoking meats with Jim and we did a whole bunch of pork that Becky pulled later. It was a lot of fun to join into their lives for an evening.
Only thing to add to the St. Louis stop was a fun free Zoo! It was great. (we like free things)
After St. Louis we went to Memphis and visited my dads cousin Jeff and his son Sammy. They drove us all over the city telling us about places, sites, Fedex, food etc. They took us out to eat at a BBQ place which is very popular there. We went for the ribs :) We had a great time connecting with them. We didnt really know them before this, but it was once again fun hearing about more of my roots and getting just another piece of history added to my family identity. Such a pleasure with these two.
New Orleans was fun, we camped just across the pond from it the first night, then spent the day in the city. Tried Nawlin's dishes, drinks, walked around in the french quarter, listened to live jazz, drove around site-seeing in the garden district, went to an art museum and eventually found ourselves outside the city at a Walmart where we "camped" for the night. My car was not made to have me in it overnight! :)
I thoroughly enjoyed fishing! Large mouth bass that kept snapping my line... thats what Im talking about :) Scrabble with folks, playing with the grandkids, working outside getting a sunburn, just cant beat some of that stuff. One thing I am realizing more and more on this trip is that life and joy are in the mundane, the small things, the things that dont seem awesome: when living in the moment, in those moments, life and enjoyment happens.
We went to Gainesville after camping on the Gulf. We stayed with a family of 7. 5 young kids and a dog were fun. But mainly we got to just talk and hang out with a couple that is very different from ourselves and yet similar in many ways. It is fun to meet people that you simply can not put into a box or category that you might have had in your head. These people were ordinary yet so unique, hippyish yet structured, handled things differently yet so loving. It always amazes me to see the love in families and to just know that whether people know it or not, its just part of God's nature and being that is flowing in and out of that love. So cool. Needless to say we had a very fun time with them and I got a picture of a picture of them since I forgot to get one while they were still at the house.
Thanks for reading and caring about us :)
Caleb
Visited cousins in Dallas Texas
Stayed with our friends for a week in Tulsa
Visited my old College in Hesston KS
Couchsurfed in Kansas City
Couchsurfed in St. Louis
Visited cousins in Memphis
Broke down in Vicksburg
Went to New Orleans
Visited family friends near Mobile Alabama
Camped on St. Joseph's Peninsula in Florida
Couchsurfed in Gainesville Fl
The Long Version: (starting with Hannah)
I enjoyed our few hours in St. Louis but the highlight was Caleb experiencing frozen custard for the first time. If you haven't had it you are missing out. Puts regular ice cream to shame.
I don't know if I'd call this a highlight exactly but we did encounter some car trouble but when it was all over it was pretty cool to see how Father pieced it all together. As we made our way towards New Orleans we planned to camp out in the sticks outside of Vicksburg, MS but stopped in Vicksburg to get fuel before heading out. Thank you, Jesus #1. When we went to leave our car wouldn't start. It was late in the day so our car would just have to get towed somewhere and worked on the next day. Of all the gas stations we could have picked we picked one that was within walking distance of close to 10 hotels and about a mile from where our car was going to get worked on. Thank you, Jesus #2. And, the hotel we stayed in not only served breakfast but dinner as well. Thank you, Jesus #3. So, we stayed the night but when it came time to check out of our hotel our car still wasn't fixed so we decided to wander around the Civil War battlefield park across the street--not every day you pass time by wandering through a place like that! As it so happened, the route we took led us within 100ft. of where our car was. Thank you, Jesus #4. So we popped in to see what they found and the guy was just putting everything back together. We were back on the road within 15 minutes. Thank you, Jesus! So what started as a 'what do we do now?' ended with just a mechanic bill and staying somewhere different than we planned.
It took awhile but we've finally found Spring and warm weather. For the past week we have been seeing azaleas blooming and here in Fl there are tons of fruit/vegetable stands selling oranges (duh), strawberries, tomatoes, you name it. Ah.
Right now we are staying with friends of our friends from Mobile (we are becoming professionals at finding free places to stay and feeling at home in strange places) in central Florida and are getting ready to head down to Haiti to see Naomi (my sis) on Thursday.
From Hannah
Now from Caleb
I've had a lot of fun these past few weeks...
Next was Tulsa, and like Hannah said before, it was great. She covered that well, but one story I want to put in here during that time was about this picture to the right. While Hannah and I were in India last year, I felt like one of the things God spoke very clear to me was, "you need to get healthy." Meaning to me that we needed to get healthy in our relationship with one another (God and me). Obviously He is healthy, so I need to really give him the time to get me healthy. Not try to do anything major, just be myself, rest, relax, let him love on me and really let him establish our relationship in health and goodness. Previously it had been a lot of "means to an end" type of relationship. Such as, yay, I love you God, I want to do so much for you and I know that if I spend time with you it will make me be able to do so much more and better etc. etc. etc. It wasn't about just me and Him, it was always clouded with other things... So for the past year, (and Im still in this season) this has been the theme for me. Getting Healthy. Letting God build trust, not trying to control my healthiness by doing all sorts of things I think I must do to be healthy, but actually let him be my Papa and take care of me. Learning to trust, etc. So the picture is of a card that was on the mantle of a random persons house that our friends took us to. Of course I had to snap a picture of it and of course it was just a nice little gift from Papa that told me, Im with you and I really am leading you. Oh how good that feels :)
Only thing to add to the St. Louis stop was a fun free Zoo! It was great. (we like free things)
New Orleans was fun, we camped just across the pond from it the first night, then spent the day in the city. Tried Nawlin's dishes, drinks, walked around in the french quarter, listened to live jazz, drove around site-seeing in the garden district, went to an art museum and eventually found ourselves outside the city at a Walmart where we "camped" for the night. My car was not made to have me in it overnight! :)
I thoroughly enjoyed fishing! Large mouth bass that kept snapping my line... thats what Im talking about :) Scrabble with folks, playing with the grandkids, working outside getting a sunburn, just cant beat some of that stuff. One thing I am realizing more and more on this trip is that life and joy are in the mundane, the small things, the things that dont seem awesome: when living in the moment, in those moments, life and enjoyment happens.
Thanks for reading and caring about us :)
Caleb
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