There and back. Again.

Time has flown!

I completed one entire month of homelessness when God's path for me led to Kansas. Shantel and I were flown out to work at a summer camp for delinquent boys living in a detention center. We got to stay with some really beautiful people and take part in the Body of Christ in ways that were so fresh and new to us. The people in Wichita are really loving and joyful. It was a blessing to be there.

We were supposed to fly back after the first week of camp, but we both felt that God was calling us to stay and work the third round (second round for us) in Kansas City. We decided to obey though we didn't know how we would return to Seattle without a plane ticket. We knew that God would provide a way for His will to be done. Our dear friends Jake and Abigail Grove drove to Wichita where we were and brought us Kansas City. We stayed with them in a traveler house that was a new experience for me. Through the few days we stayed there the house had 8-12 people staying in it. It was an old house and three stories tall. All of the people there were very counter-culture. The system in the house was very generous and green.

Our second week of camp was exhuasting and we were really broken by the work. I felt that I lost sight of God's love in the chaos of the activity going on around me. By the end of camp I broke down and Jesus lifted my spirit to rest. The final day was beautiful. The parents of the kids came and we presented all the different things that had been prepared in camp during the week. I taught guitar class and helped with a dance class, though most of the time I was too embarassed to dance.

We decided last minute to hitchhike from Kansas to South Dakota to see my parents, and introduce them to Shantel. It was my first experience hitching. We got a total of four rides to end up in SD. The first was a guy in his dad's Jetta who coached debate. It was only an hour ride out of Kansas City and we were so ecstatic that we celebrated with Red Lobster and a hotel room. The next morning we got a ride about an hour and a half in from a girl driving her grandma's two-seater convertible. She felt sorry for us since the weather was super hot. We rode for nine hours on each others' laps and laughed the whole way. She was awesome. She joined the Peace Corps and was shipping out to the Phillipines in the fall. She felt in over her head, but we told her it was the only way to be. On the way we saw 200 foot tall windmills that supposed killed bats. They looked very alien out on the plains.

She dropped us at I-90 in Minnesota, roughly five hours away from our destination just at dark. The mosquitoes were thick and I wanted to hitch but Shantel wanted to stop somewhere. We were out in the middle of no where. I prayed and felt God telling me to walk the highway in the dark, so we did. Ten minutes later a man picked us up. We were so blessed by him. Shantel slept in the back seat while I talked with him about a million different things. He was a corn breeder and a Christmas tree farmer. He dropped us in Mitchell, SD, two hours from home. We slept out there and got a ride from a man with his cat moving from Georgia to Montana the next morning. We rode in back of his truck the whole way and my heart starting getting very excited to be so close to home and recognize the landscape. My mom met us with my brother at truckstop a few miles out of Pierre and then I told her that we had hitched. She was not pleased but I told her we made it so no need to worry now. We were home!

We have been in Pierre, SD, staying with my parents for the last week. We both did some pretty intense work for my dad to make money to buy bus tickets back to Seattle. We also hung out with my brother. Shantel got to know my family (at least part of it) and we all had a great time. Shantel and I fought a bit but God has been faithful to draw us together and keep us in love with one another. My dad has taken us out boating a ton this week, and I learned how to slalom water ski(one ski). I managed to get my brother on my back while I was skiing. It was insanely awesome.

We leave tomorrow. It will be nice to get back. Life sort of stops here, but it is nice for awhile. It will be good to keep moving. So it goes!