Days 74 – 77: Oklahoma

This is the longest I’ve gone without blogging since we began our road trip!  Yikes!!!!  But, we’ve been SUPER busy – the last four nights we have had a presentation and the days have been busy with traveling and resting, too.  So, here’s a brief recap…

Friday morning we drove from Bentonville, AR to Oklahoma City.  The drive was really pretty – this is a fantastic part of the country.  We passed through Tulsa, where we are now, as our visit to Oklahoma is really roundabout, but it’s all in how the dates worked out for everyone.

We arrived at our host’s house in the late afternoon and got to hang out with them for a bit – they have two daughters and one little boy just home from DRC since May.  It was fun to practice our Lingala and watch how quickly he picks up the English!

Friday night was our host’s informal collage reunion with some friends, so we tagged along and crashed their party.  The kids had fun and we were invited to share a little about our ministry.  What a blessing to suddenly be surrounded by strangers we’ve never met who are interested in Congo and what we’re doing there!

On the way to the party, we drove through Moore, OK – made famous by not one, but two disastrous tornados that hit in May.  The destruction is still clearly visible.  Even our host’s house was hit by the second tornado, with their upstairs ceiling being replaced – she mentioned that almost every house in the neighborhood has a new roof and new fences.

Saturday we headed out with our hosts to see a little bit of downtown OKC.  We went down to their river walk and ate some amazing tacos and took a leisurely walk around with all five kiddos.  It was a nice warm day, not too hot, though this pregnant lady was worn out by the end!

Saturday evening our hosts had many adopting families over for dinner and we presented our ministry.  It was so fun to meet so many more families in all phases of the adoption process!  We had a great time sharing our ministry and talking with the families.

Sunday morning we woke extra early and headed out for church…two hours away.  We went north to Enid, where we have been blessed by the prayer and financial support of Sovereign Grace Baptist Church.  This tiny congregation has truly been a wonderful connection and encouraging group of people.  We were very excited to see them all again and share with them about our first year in DRC.  We last saw the congregation on Super Bowl Sunday in 2012 – imagine an entire church skipping the Super Bowl (it was being recorded for after the service) to hear missionaries they’ve never met!  That was this amazing group of people!

After church we headed over to a family’s house who also hosted us for the evening.  They live on Vance Air Force Base – our first stay on a military post – and have four kids and one more on the way.  Levi and Amelia had a great time playing, though nap time for Amelia didn’t go too well.  She finally fell asleep on Daddy and suddenly woke up and threw up all over him.  So random!  She’s felt pretty well ever since, though we all feel like we might be coming down with yet another bug of some kind.

Anyway, I was completely exhausted, so also took a nap before evening service.  For the evening service, we spoke about our year in Congo and what God has planned for our future there.  After the service, there was a soup and sandwich dinner.  Such a fun evening socializing and dining with new and old friends!

We got to bed late and were super thankful the kids slept in a bit this morning.  Today we drove back over to Tulsa, stopping at the famous Eskimo Joe’s in Stillwater for lunch.  Our hosts here just brought home two kiddos from DRC in December – we missed meeting each other because they had appointments on the days I was taking adopting families out – and hosted a dinner and gathering for a group of people, some adopting, some interested in Congo, some interested in missionary life.  It was our fourth night in a row of presentations, yet once again, God blessed us with new relationships, new people supporting us through prayer, encouragement, and finances.

We are super blessed!!!  We have just four more weeks on the road – we are getting tired, not gonna lie.  We are looking forward to remembering what it means to have a home, a bed to call our own, a routine, etc.  Weird things that we haven’t experienced since March!

Please pray for our last month – that we get the rest we need to be ready for the intense training we’ll be doing right away in October and a new baby in November.  That we continue to grow our support team so that we can get back to DRC as soon as training is done.  Thank you for your prayers thus far – we have needed them!

Onward – to finish our week in Oklahoma…