So today was a great day, according to the facts: we got to hang out with very good friends, we had our first visit to Chick-fil-A ever, we all got naps/rest, it was a gorgeous sunny day in the 60’sF – perfect for hosing down the car seat.

Yep.  Hosing down the car seat only means one thing: sick kid.

We’re now thinking that’s Levi’s past three days of sudden, horrible, impossible behavior was not trip burn-out after all, but rather perhaps simply an upset stomach.  On the way home from Chick-fil-A Levi started to get whiny, then sweaty, then he just…well, no explanation needed.  A few minutes after driving again (stopping only to clean up a little), he promptly complained of “food on my tummy” and being “very, very tired” and fell asleep.  It was gross and sweet all at the same time.  As soon as he was cleaned and napped for a while he was feeling much better and back to his usual, happy self.  Hopefully that was the end of that!  We were so grateful it happened on a day when we didn’t have any real plans, especially a day when we weren’t in the car!

Our friends here are friends we originally met in Alaska.  They have been wonderful hosts and we’ve enjoyed getting to know their expanding family.  They have been advocating for us and our mission work, telling everyone they know, passing out our prayer cards, and just being so supportive!  It’s been great to talk with them and answer their questions in person!

Tonight we’re eating a late dinner, hanging out with our friends, and preparing to move on tomorrow.  Wheeee!

Tomorrow: OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOklahoma….

Did we leave you hanging on the edge for our more about our visit to St. Louis?  No?  Fine…but I will tell you all the dirty details.  We had SUCH a good time.  And we are SO tired!

We had a lot of apprehension about our decision to go to St. Louis.  We felt we were doing the right thing, but we weren’t confident.  We prayed hard that we had made the right decision, even though we were incredibly disappointed to change plans at the last minute, but the Lord answered our prayers and affirmed that St. Louis was, indeed, the right place for us!

On Monday we had a leisurely breakfast and then headed out to the St. Louis Zoo.  This zoo was amazing – the best we’ve ever been to – and best of all is it was free!  We only managed to see a fraction of the beautiful exhibits, but the boys (our host family went with us) got to see all of the reptiles.  We made sure to see the African animals.  The roaring lion did scare Levi, but was pretty awesome to the rest of us.  And this zoo has an okapi!  Okapis are only found in the DRC, so it was pretty neat to see in person!  (Pictures tomorrow, maybe…)  Oh, and the penguins…so adorable!

That afternoon we arranged a very special connection to visit with a family.  Let me see if I can get the connection correct…a deacon at the church at which we presented on Sunday morning told us about another church downtown that ministers to Congolese refugees.  That evening, at a different church, a couple approached us with the contact info of the Congolese pastoral intern at the downtown church. We called him and were referred to the elder that leads the outreach program for the Congolese.  So, we got to meet him and his family.  He and his wife go to the DRC yearly, at least, and use MAF to fly around the country to minister (he is a doctor and his wife is a nurse).  They were so gracious to meet with us and answer all of our questions.  We hope to see them again soon in Kinshasa!

We also made a few other connections that are really special.  A woman from one of the churches gave the mother of her students a prayer card because this family is adopting a boy that is currently living in an orphanage in the DRC.  The adoptive mother and I are now friends on facebook and I look forward to helping her in any way that I can, be it connecting her with other Americans in Kinshasa while she’s there, or just being an encouragement to her.  Another person we connected with is a Congolese refugee who escaped in 2004 and hasn’t heard from his family since.  We are praying that we can keep an ear to the ground to help him connect to his father or siblings.

What a wonderful series of events and a neat group of connections!  We are so blessed to have spent the last few days exploring St. Louis and spending time with good friends.  Oh, and I got to try White Castle for the first time…it was okay.

This morning (well, I suppose it’s technically Wednesday, but pretend it’s still Tuesday, ok?) we went to chapel at Covenant Seminary, since we were staying on campus, and then needed to run to the store for a few items.  We decided to stop by the Gateway Arch.  As soon as he could see it on the horizon, Levi was asking to go under it.  He was pretty surprised when we told him that was exactly what we were doing.  I have lots of neat pictures from that adventure too…but you’ll have come back for those.

After a brief run to Target, we headed back to get packed up and say our goodbyes.  We were on the road by 5pm and the kids were asleep by 5:10.  We made it without stopping all the way to Leavenworth, Kansas, pulling in our friends’ driveway at 9:20pm.  The kiddos did amazing, despite Levi having an equally rough two days as he had on Sunday.  Please pray for us on this one…it is extremely difficult to parent him right now!

And while we aren’t really feeling a longing for our own bed (this is mostly due to the fact that we left that in Alaska), we are tired from our adventures over the past few days and are hoping for a bit of rest here.  The drives aren’t long and don’t feel burdensome, but we might be getting a little stir crazy…we sang the entire “99 bottle of beer” song without stopping and were bummed it only passed twelve minutes.

For the next two nights we are spending time with some amazing friends we met in Alaska.  I think I could do an entire blog post on why this family is particularly awesome.  Levi is sharing a room for the first time with their 4-year-old daughter.  I’m hoping it goes okay…and now we are going to go to bed.

Tomorrow: Rest and our first time at Chick-fil-A…among other important things

Today was the unknown day – and it ended up being a very great day!  This morning we had a delicious breakfast and headed over to the church.  We were given a few minutes to speak in the service and had our table of information in the back.  We were able to speak to several people.  The building at Memorial Presbyterian Church is absolutely gorgeous!

This afternoon we had Sunday lunch with some friends from our home church in Tacoma, Washington who have moved out to St. Louis and it was really fun to get to know one another as families.  Levi and Charlie had a blast playing, though the “learning to trade” concept was a bit frustrating at times.

Our hosts here, who are good friends from Alaska, were able to ask the right person at their new home church, The Covenant Presbyterian Church, and we were allowed to set up our table and our presence was made known during the evening service.  We made a few great connections and were very glad to have the additional opportunity to present our work to another family of believers here!

However, as fun as the day was, Levi had a very tough day.  He was overtired and completely spent.  He really struggled and, of course, that caused us headache and heartache.  Hopefully tomorrow will be a new day for him after a good night of rest.

So now we are off to bed, too!

Tomorrow: Let’s see St. Louis!

And we’re off to St. Louis…check back for updates to this post late tonight!

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Last night we had a grand time at a Small Group meeting with our MAF friends and a few friends from their church.  Levi especially loved playing with a vast array of wheeled/ride-able toys and we really enjoyed the fellowship.  Afterwards, Matthew and Kevin went back to the house to spar a bit, using their respective martial art skills, Judo and Jiujitsu…essentially beating each other up in the name of fun.  And today’s aches and bruises aside, they did indeed have fun!  Tasha and I had fun just gabbing it up, talking about family and life overseas.  Oh, and they spoiled us with true Southern Hospitality and Cooking!  It was amazing.  What a wonderful experience in the middle of our road trip – to be with like-minded people on the same track in life!

This morning, after a hearty breakfast of freshly baked, homemade sourdough apple cinnamon rolls (yummmm), we hit the road towards St. Louis.  We stopped in Nashville for lunch, driving down Broadway, which appeared to be the “main drag,” and seeing the Country Music Hall of Fame from the outside.  We had a little BBQ and sweet tea before hitting the road again for the long push back west to Missouri.  We did see the Arch on the way in – very impressive!  I got a few blurry pictures that I may or may not remember to post later.  We finally arrived at our friends’ house, a bit later than we wanted, but not completely spent.

This morning we were going with Plan F – a church here in St. Louis had agreed that we could set up our table of information and they would announce that we were present.  A great opportunity, and definitely better than the other churches that were unable to do even that.  While on the road we got an even better call: a different church here in St. Louis was able to fit us into their morning service so that we could present what we are doing with MAF to the congregation.  Yay!  (It should be noted that later, we did get a follow-up call from a church in Knoxville that wanted us to share with their Sunday school class, but it was too late – we still hope to make a connection at that church through a different means.)  So, we are excited to see some “old” friends from Alaska here in St. Louis and hopefully find some people who might be interested in finding out a bit more about what we’ll be doing in the DRC!

Tomorrow: Last minute, providential connections coming together…

Maybe you think that a lack of blog post last night means something really exciting happened to us.  Or maybe you think we’re driving all night long in circles around the country, hoping someone takes us in.  Thankfully, neither.  We are currently just outside Knoxville, Tennessee staying in a huge house all by ourselves (it doesn’t have internet, though).  This particular part of our trip is kind of a bonus for us.  We couldn’t count on being able to stop here, because it’s not necessarily for support-raising, but since we are still working on a plan for Sunday, this little detour does not take us far from our options that are still in progress.  We are visiting with Kevin and Tasha Spann.  They are special friends to us because they, too, are missionaries with MAF and have been assigned to Kinshasa, DRC.  Kevin is a pilot/mechanic.  We met each other at training in Idaho this past summer and have both been in the process of deputation (support raising).  It is so encouraging to talk about what we enjoy and how we are struggling with this process.  We have had some very similar experiences.  So, Kevin’s grandparents, who are wintering in Florida, offered their home just down the street for us to stay.  We are able to talk about the prospect of living in such a different place in the world and our program director in Kin even sent us both an email of things to discuss while we’re together!

This morning, Levi was running around with an old version of Hungry Hungry Hippos, “feeding” them, saying “Hungry hungry hippos, are you hungry?  I’ll get some for ya.  Here ya go…that’s enough.  Okay.  Want this one?  K.”  A little later he paid homage to his grandpa by taking a lunch box and the thermos, saying “I’m going to work now – I’m going to build airplanes!”  (Grandpa works at Boeing.)  Then he’d go to the front door, turn around, come through the living room and announce “I’m home now!”  He would then proceed to feed his hippos again.

So, what are we doing Sunday?  We have a Plan F, but are still open if a church allows us the opportunity to present our work to the congregation.  We are so grateful to everyone who has been calling and emailing their connections all over the East Coast to find us a place.  Once we hear definitive answers from all of our contacts, we’ll let you know what we’re doing and where we’re going.

This weekend:  Only the Lord knows…hopefully He’ll let us know soon too!

What a day!  And guess what?  We still got nothin’…  What I mean to say is that we still are open on Sunday, with no plans, but we spent all day today calling and researching churches all over the east coast.  Cold calling is not our favorite, especially since we aren’t phone-people, per se, and we got a solid streak of no’s, but some pastors were very kind and gave us new leads…who also said no.  A few minutes ago we simply got the giggles and decided to call it a day and let our leads go until tomorrow.  We’re brain-dead!  We realize it’s an odd, last minute request, but the worst thing that happens is we hear “no” once more.

Tomorrow we will hopefully have more plans in place – please please pray to this end!  We’ll let you know as soon as we do!

Tomorrow: ???

Last night’s presentation at Grace Presbyterian Church went really well, we think.  And we were well received – the people there were so welcoming and kind.  This part of gathering partners for our ministry – meeting new people, being welcomed – is really fun.

One of the highlights of our last visit was that the Mrs. had been a laboratory technician back in her army days in the 70’s.  So, we had been doing the same job, but 40 years apart.  (That had been my job, pre-kiddos.)  It was so fun to talk about the difference in the work place.  Where she had been doing most of the testing by hand, including mixing her own chemicals, I told her about all of the automation that has come into play in the field.

However, despite the fun, we left their house just outside Cincinnati this morning and drove only about two hours (soooo short!) to my uncle’s house in the tri-state area of Ohio, Kentucky, and West Virginia.  Right now Amelia is sleeping on my cousin’s lap while Levi is being shown how to play Angry Bird (literally saying, “Go Angry Bird!  Knock the tower over!”) on her iPhone.  My grandma is watching while my aunt and uncle putter around before dinner.  Such a nice, relaxing visit and so fun to see family before heading overseas.  This cousin and her sister (who lives in Pittsburgh) are getting married this summer and we are so sad to miss it, especially since it will be a joint wedding in Mexico!

Our visit here, while it is mainly to see family, is a nice break and a time to figure out what the next weekend will bring.  We have several leads and hope to have plans by the end of tomorrow, but we are praying for the Lord’s leading and that a church or group of people will be open to hearing about our ministry and that our other plans can also be fulfilled.  Our next scheduled stop is in St. Louis, MO, just for an overnight, on the 31st.  Please pray with us for doors to be opened and that ministry partners will be found this week!

Matthew will also taking the time to check out our car, since we’ve pushed it so hard.  It’s been such a blessing and hasn’t had any problems, but my uncle has a garage and all of the necessary tools, so what a great place to be!  We also should clean out our car.  Although, after such a long trip with all of the cold weather, it was soooo nice and warm today, despite the wind, being nearly 60F!  Even the wind felt warm…as Alaskans, we remember the Chinooks fondly.

Here are a few pictures:

Levi and cousin Allison with his new Mr. Potato Head

So studious...

More studious-ness...

Lisa's grandma (now called: Great Grandma Grace), feeding Amelia

Allison and Amelia

Tomorrow: Family time!