Another incredibly late update for
those of you who still read this. Well, since my last
update...there's been loads of stuff going on in my life. The biggest
change was getting married at the end of March, which many of you
were able to come to. Thanks so much! Aside from the whole getting
married thing, the best part about the wedding is that you get pretty
much all of your favorite people in the world in one place...and
those who can't make it still send cards and stuff. It's just one
huge, awesome reminder of all the people God has put in our lives and
the impact they've had. It's really overwhelming. We were blown away
by all the support and encouragement we received, not just in making
the wedding happen (although there was tons of stuff with that), but
also for our lives. We are so blessed!!!
After the wedding, we were able to go
to California right away which was really fun. I had never been to
Cali before, but liked it. One of the highlights was a restaurant
that specialized in cinnamon rolls. Yeah, how great is that?!?!
Perfect rolls and coffee and that's it. Anyways, we stayed there
(california, not the cinnamon roll place) for a week and began the
drive back on Friday.
On the drive back, I pulled the
ultimate husband move of “Nah, we don't need to gas up here, we can
definitely make it to Bakersfield.” Well, turns out, Bakersfield
was a lot farther away than anticipated and the gas gauge drops
significantly faster for the bottom half. Miles seem a lot longer
when your “low fuel” light has been on for 30 minutes and the
gauge is just sitting on the bottom...yeah, and then I'm thinking how
ironic it would be to run out of gas in the middle of Exxon Mobile
and Chevron oil fields...where you are surrounded by signs for them
and no gas stations within 30 miles. Haha, that would be pretty
funny....except for being stranded in the middle of nowhere on your honeymoon. Long story short,
we probably had angels pushing the car, but we eventually made it to
a gas station and I've never been so happy to pay $4.59 a gallon in
my life.
Colorado City:
The really cool part happened after
that. It turned out that as we were planning our wedding date and the
honeymoon after, we decided to come back Saturday, April 7th.
After planning that, I got an update from an old missionary friend in
Utah that I'd served with years ago. He said he was planning an
outreach in Colorado City, Utah, for what date? You guessed it—April
7th! Colorado City is almost exactly halfway, and right on
the way, home from California. So we had the wonderful privilege of
joining in that outreach.
What an outreach it was! In the
morning, the team swept the entire town passing out invitations to a
free barbeque in the park which was attached to a testimony that some
of the college students had written out that talked about some truth
that God had shown them in the Bible and how that affected their
lives. We then went to set up for the afternoon in the park. It was
such a great time catching up with the few that remembered me from
years before. There is just such a special connection with those
people whom you've served with on a mission field like Utah. It just
brings you together in a way that you can't really describe. And, of
course, they all got to meet my new wife. After being in the park for
a while, one of the ladies from our group spotted several local boys
sitting a ways off and mentioned how someone should go meet them. I
grabbed the best “ice-breaker” tools I know—a soccer ball and
cones. I walked up to them and asked if they would like to play
soccer, to which one boy responded, “I'd rather soccer than
frisbee.” (yeah, great answer) “Me too,” I said. So we got to
play soccer for like three hours and I found out I'm not in the
soccer shape I used to be in. Their older brother, though, who was a
little older than me, sat on the bench and watched for the first
while and read through probably 5 or 6 testimonies. Awesome! Later we
sat with a family for dinner. They were very friendly and open and we
even got to talk about the gospel for a bit. The father told one of
his younger sons (probably 10-12) to give us a “honeymoon ride”
on his 4 wheeler. Just really cool to connect in such a short time.
The pastor that came with the missions group and I were able to talk
with a young man for a couple hours about God and everything else and
he was very hungry for it. Sarah (my wife) also had some great
conversations with some junior high and high school age girls as well
as some of the other women. It was AMAZING to have the conversations
and connections after the FLDS leaders had told their people
beforehand not to come to the “Devil's Barbeque.” Very intense,
but a great outreach and a great way to finish the honeymoon
(although it's never really over.)
Snowmass:
It was nice to get back and have some
extra time to move in and get situated because it was my “buffer
season.” this is the time between ski instructing and raft guiding,
which is nice for the time, but not as nice for the finances.
However, God has faithfully provided. One of my close friends who has
turned into a mentor for me had a construction project in Snowmass
that he needed some help with. So I got to go with him and few others
to work for a week and then again for a couple days. One the second
time, I was given a great opportunity to talk with one of my
co-workers about Jesus. He and I were staying in the same room and
had talked just briefly about God in the car. In the morning, I
prayed over my granola and said (silently), “and Lord, please give
me and opportunity with this guy and open up his heart. In Jesus
name, Amen.” What do you know? About ten minutes after that, the
conversation turned to God and I got to share the gospel with him.
Good times. I'm still praying that he will repent of his sin and
trust in Christ.
Back in Gunny:
Since being back, I'm still helping out
Rick with ministry stuff. While I'm mostly in charge of organizing
the music, I've been able to preach several times and feel like
there's more of a calling in that direction. We'll see how God leads
with that. Rafting has started back up, which is really fun and God
has provided me with a good amount of work. Still praying for good
conversations with my fellow guides.
Married life:
It seems like a lot of people are
asking us, “So, how's married life?” these days. It's actually a
really weird question. It's not exactly a short, one sentence answer.
It's not like it's bad. But I feel like it's not totally accurate if
I just say, “oh, it's great.” If any of you are married, you know
what I mean. It's awesome, but it's still got it's struggles and
challenges and quite frankly, it's a lot of work...but it's still
awesome. It's not like our marriage is a cake-walk with nothing wrong
ever, but we're learning so much about ourselves and each other and
tons about grace, humility, and forgiveness. I've found myself
usually responding to the original question as “It's good. It's
really sanctifying.” We've been blessed by having lots of great
advice. Some friends have given us, “Real Marriage: The truth about
sex, friendship & life together” by Mark and Grace Driscoll
which is definitely a good book for couples to work through together.
It's helped a lot....and we're still just halfway through it!
Well, as always, there's a lot more,
but this is already long enough, so you'll just have to wait for
another 4 months or whatever it's been till my next one. Okay, jk,
hopefully I can be more consistent in my updates from now on. Thanks
so much for your prayers and encouragement. It means so much.
“Therefore if you have been raised up
with Christ, keep seeking the things above, where Christ is, seated
at the right hand of God.” Colossians 3:1
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