After being in and out of Ohio at least every once a month within the last 15+ months, I thought I'd stay here for a while. But... why?
The magazines "Why Jesus" were printed on Friday, August 24th, and the campus group in Omaha, Nebraska needed them by Sunday. Since shipping would've been too expensive to get there overnight, I volunteered to drive them out there. And since I was drive out to Nebraska, we figured I might as well drop off the magazines at Missouri, Iowa, and Wisconsin!
So Jon Lee and I took off on Saturday afternoon for Columbia, Missouri. We stayed the night there with Adam Snell and had breakfast with him the next morning. Adam is the campus director for that church - Valley View Community Church. I met him last fall, and we also stayed in touch at Faithwalkers and the Pastor's Conference.
We left early Sunday morning for Kansas City, where my friend Jenilee lives. She was the girl I met in Germany while we were both there for a missions trip (read). She's not part of Great Commission church- so I decided to go to her church that morning. That was neat, and then we had lunch that afternoon. It was really neat to catch up and encourage each other.
After lunch, Jon and I drove up to Omaha to accomplish our main goal. We arrived around 6pm and quickly dropped off the magazines so we could get to Iowa soon.
We got to Des Moines around 10pm and I had a great time connected with Josh and Stephanie - friends that joined us in Italy for our missions trip. We only had the night to talk- it turned into a few hours as we stayed up late. It was so encouraging to talk about our summers, our plans for the fall, the challenges and hopes for the year and the time to come afterward. We finished by praying for each other.
Now Monday morning, I went half way to Ames to meet with John Fitsimmons (bootcamper) to have breakfast at Panera. After a couples hours of catching up and sharing, I went back to Des Moines to see Nick Bal for a few minutes. Then Jon and I went back up to Ames to see the other bootcampers Andrew Bovenmeyer and Anthony Ashley. It was fun to see them again and especially at their home instead of in Columbus.
After just a couple hours in Ames, we left for Wisconsin. However, the route took us through Minneapolis. Since we won't be back in Minneapolis anytime soon, we decided to stop by the Mall of America! We walked around for a few minutes, and decided to ride one of their roller coasters. It was fun, but the best part about it was that it was a random happening! 30 minutes later, we left for Eau Claire.
We got to Eau Claire around 11pm and saw Katie and Amy Geary. Since they weren't in school, we had time to stay up late. And for those of you who've heard of it, Wisconsin is famous for blating. As I vowed, though, I can't say anything about it. But, after a year of hearing about from Katie, I finally got the chance of experiencing blating. And all I'll say is that I enjoyed it. So after a pretty late late again, we had breakfast at Panera, and chatted about different things. We left around noon, and got back to C-bus Tuesday around midnight.
I was so encouraged and happy to see everyone again. I only had about a couple hours at best with each person/church group. I learned to "redeem the time" - adjust quickly to talk about their lives, and to give and receive genuine encouragement. My love for them and other Christians around the states and the world grew so much! It is something special when, after a while without seeing each other, you can connect and encourage each other! It is a spiritual bond that has Christ at the center. Jon Lee and I also had a great time getting to know each other on the road (over 25 hours of driving!) We enjoyed listening to Sarah McLachlan's Christmas CD! Overall, though we were driving a lot, and only got to see others briefly, it was such an encouraging time to see my other brothers and sisters!