Sorry, there won’t be pictures yet. I’m waiting to post some pics when we get home. Here’s a quick synopsis of our adventures on the way there…bullet point style…

• We made day number one our longest driving day (wise choice). After driving for over twelve hours we arrived at our KOA stop in Brigham city, UT after hours only to discover that the cabin I had a reservation for was for the wrong night! So there we were at the camp sight with no cabin to sleep in and no KOA employee to help us out. So what did we do? We fished out our tent and set it up in the dark as quick we could. It went better than expected…that is, until our allergies hit. Whatever those beautiful smelling trees were surrounding us they wreaked havoc on all our allergies. The most painful was our children who wheezed and coughed all night…none of us really slept. The next morning we left before the campground opened so that we wouldn’t have to deal with paying for an extra camp sight or trying to explain the situation so as to hopefully change the reservation after the fact.
• Oh, I forgot to say that we paid 4.33 for gas in eastern Oregon…ouch.
• Day two was easy. It was our short day, only 7 hours. We arrived at our Cheyenne destination with enough time to eat some Taco Johns, go swimming, and relax at our cabin. It was nice. And jones decided that he’d rather stay here than go to PAPA fest.
• Day three. We saw a giraffe and a camel while driving through Nebraska. There they were just chillin‘ at a local farm. It was strange.
• Paid 3.73 for gas in Iowa…nice
• Things were going fine and dandy driving through Iowa. We stopped at some little Podunk town called Walnut to get some gas, it was 60 miles from anything of significance. After refueling, the car wouldn’t start. When we’d turn the key it’d just click, like a dead battery. The gauges were twitching like they had a tick or something and all the lights on the dash would come on and off as they pleased. The strangest thing was that whenever the key was out there was a loud buzzing sound under the steering wheel. I was worried it was some sort of electrical short or something. We were able to jump the car, but if we turned it off it wouldn’t start back up. New battery? Alternator? Starter? Lucky for us there was a man there who knew a guy and who seemed to have the impression like we were really poor and needed help (are we really that obvious?). So he called around and within an hour we had a mechanic take us to his shop where he proceeded to diagnose the problem. One dirty battery terminal later and $0.00 in fees we were off and running. The amazing thing in all of this is that neither Jess or I were stressed. We both felt an overwhelming sense of the peace of Christ. We knew that we were only on this trip because we felt urged by God to do so and we both are convinced that our vehicle belongs to him. So we just sat back and let God do his thing.
• Jess made this trip easy. Not to mention all the great snacks and healthy meals she planned out ahead of time. But she also put together a large amount of prize bags for the kids. These bags ranged from little homemade activities, to a leap pad, to books, to some out of the ordinary toys that we purchased ahead of time at Goodwill. She’s amazing and creative and even hot too boot!
• On our last day of travel going from Des Moines to Tiskilwa (a 4.5 hour drive) we woke up incredibly late. Crap! We wanted to arrive as early as possible at PAPA fest because we didn’t know what to expect and we wanted to have time to adjust on the fly with our kids. The opening ceremonies were at 1:00 and we didn’t leave until 7:45. And to make things worse was that we hit some traffic that set us behind even more.
• We passed over the Mississippi river without having time to stop. We refueled at the largest truckstop in the world (3.83 a gallon). We saw some of the effects of the flooding. And we arrived at PAPA fest at 12:30. Right in time.
• When we pulled into the mowed down farm field for parking and instructions a girl sprayed our car with a supersoaker and I was immediately overwhelmed with the number of people I saw with dreads (over half of those currently visible). A girl with long hair under her arms and on her legs gave us the rules for the weekend and told us where to park. Everyone was incredibly nice and strange looking. It was going to be a very interesting weekend.

We’re in Oklahoma now.
The weekend was amazing.
I’ll try to spend the next few blogs telling you bits and pieces of our journey.
For now, I’ll just tell you that the focus of the weekend was all about what it looks like for a movement of people to take the words of Jesus seriously. The whole weekend was centered on a deep love and desire to follow Jesus.
Jones got in a fight with Shane Claiborne.

It’s past one AM and we’re leaving in four hours…or so we planned. Pray for us! If you haven’t seen the two videos that are inspiring our trip check them out here…

And…

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

I’ve had so many ideas for blogs to write, but I just keep running out of time! So real quick here let me give an update blog for y’all:

• First, and most importantly, if you didn’t already check out my sisters blog, you need to. They’ve got little Malak and I get to see him in two weeks!
• On Monday we are leaving for PAPA Fest (people against poverty and apathy) outside of Chicago. I am so flippin‘ excited and kind of nervous too. We’ll be driving the whole way…to Chicago…then to Oklahoma…then home…with a two year old…and an eight month old…and yes, we chose to do this. The strange thing is that what I’m most nervous about isn’t the trip. I’m actually most nervous that I’ll be the most normal person at papa fest. And that everything I do will be look down on for not being radical enough. I’ll be using my little camping lantern and someone will come up to me and be like “now you do realize that a little child in China died to provide you the propane for that lantern? I hope you enjoy the light sucka.” or something like that.
• This Sunday will be the final installment of Renovatus‘ four week Parenting with Love and Logic series that we’re hosting for the school. It’s been amazing and I’m learning how to be a better parent. It’s also allowed us to bless the school and people in the neighborhood quite a bit.
• I apologize, this post is quite rushed and not thought out very thoroughly.
• I think Jess and I are going vegetarian. Or at the very least the only meat we’ll eat is the healthy, organically grown, well treated animals that my inlaws have grown. Even still meat is kind of gross…and yes, I still work at Outback.
• I’ve just nearly finished our Renovatus summer calendar. And unless you give me better suggestions it’s going to be called Renovatus’ Summervatus…so get suggesting!
• India is walking
• Jones is drawing amazing pictures. At the age of two he’s now drawing pictures that you can identify.
• Jones has reverted back to using a pacifier…a pink one…it’s driving me crazy.
• On the Compact front (not buying anything new for a year) we’re doing quite well. The hardest thing is not buying too much stuff from craigslist or goodwill. I don’t really miss Wallmart and have felt no compulsion to purchase anything new really.
• India can climb anything. She smiles all the time. She’s more strong willed than Jones ever was. And I’m very nervous.
• Renovatus is rockin. I am loving working nearly full time there and only wish that statistically we looked like a raging and overwhelming success story. Instead we recite the mantra “this is God’s church not ours. We can water and plant but growth only comes from him.”
• I love my wife…a lot.
• One of our garden boxes is thriving and amazing. We’ve already eaten some spinach from it. While the other garden box is nearly empty. I think a slug ravaged it or something. Tomatoes, bell peppers, onions, and all but one cucumber are gone. Completely gone.

Talk to y’all later!

How do you reconcile great men with their despicable deeds? For example, how do you reconcile Martin Luther King Jr., the civil rights activist, the reverend/preacher with the fact that he was having an illicit extra marital affair up until his death? Or Gandhi, who allowed his wife to die because he refused to give her a shot or who abandoned his children while in pursuit of his great causes. Or Martin Luther who was despicably antisemitic (look up some of his quotes and it’s shocking). I mean you could even delve into biblical characters. Moses and David were murderers. Peter chopped off peoples ears. Abraham whored out his wife. And the list could go on.
Generally, as I’m sure you know, we use these stories to talk about how God uses ordinary messed up people to do great things. We talk about how he can use you even though you’re messed up…or something like that.
But let’s get real here. Lets be realists. If you had a leader in your church who was having an affair, who wanted to kill Jews (or insert any people group here), who had murdered someone who had pissed him off, who gave his wife away to be a sex toy in order to get more friends, who allowed his wife to die instead of giving her an insulin shot, and who randomly took a swipe at your ear with his sword…would you preach the same message? Would you say…”Brother So and So here murdered Jack last week, and I’m here to tell you something important. I’m here to tell you that even though So and So is a murderer God is still using him to lead our youth in amazing ways. And God can use you too!…”
Sermons are great and all that, but the reality is that application is not just a good story at the end of the preachers message. Application is rough. Application is messy. Application is dangerous.
I believe that God loves each and every person…but man, when you start talking about the application of that belief…talk about messy!*

* Obviously there are consequences for actions and all that jazz. But lets not ruin a good post by opening up a whole other can of worms…which by the way are thriving in my garage. Yep, I’ve got worms in my garage. I converted a Rubbermaid tub into a worm bin and I feed them all my leftover vegetable scraps every Friday. I love my worms and they treat me well.