Eastward Bound

Well, we are starting to wrap it all down. Sorry that we have not posted the last couple of days. On Saturday, July 10, we left Sedona and drove to Kingman AZ. It was so stinking hot there! I bet it was 110 degrees. The desert Southwest is not fun in the middle of summer!

I had worked out a webcam appearance to our church on Sunday morning. So, I got up at 6:00 a.m. and Kent Davis met me online and we started working out the kinks and issues of doing the live webcam. It was pretty fun and very enjoyable to drop in on our church and send our greetings to them. I even watched the second worship set via their webcam link to me. Very cool!!!

Later that morning, we went to worship at the Praise Chapel in Kingman AZ. As a visitor, I always watch for little things that make me feel welcomed or not. As we walked in, the door greeter did his job and welcomed us to church. No one else spoke to us the rest of the morning. In fact, as we were sitting down (pre-service), Bailee said, "It's funny that no one comes us and says hello to us." The people in front of us had to have heard her. She spoke pretty loud and without much tact :) But, I thought, they will hear her and turn around and say something to us. Nope... no one. Dear reader, do we all realize how far a simple, "Hello" goes with people. I think it makes the difference. The Pastor did a great job teaching that morning. Jen and I both enjoyed the teaching. Without being weird, I just want to say, the music was good - but odd. All the instruments came through the less than adequate speakers. So, there was no ambient sound to the band. They didn't use 18" speakers, so there was no punch. It felt like we were listening to a Maranatha Band on an AM radio. That's my critical eye for the day, but we really did enjoy the service.

Nearly 100 miles later, across the desert and Hoover Dam, we were 10 miles from Las Vegas and our transmission said, "I'm done". We had it towed to a service center and we rented a car and went into Vegas. Monday was spent figuring out what we were going to do with the van. The mechanic said it was totally shot and would cost us $3,500 to replace. Needless to say, we have left our van in the desert (at the Ford dealer). Through it all, God has really spoken to us about trust, faith and provision. We had taken the backseat out of our mini-van and loaded it down. How were we going to get everything back home? What are we going to do with the van? What will we do with the stuff we have to leave behind? No rental company rents cross country mini-vans without a weeks notice. I settled for a large car and told the family that we would leave behind whatever wouldn't fit. We got to the airport and God hooked us up with an SUV. The only thing we ended up leaving behind was a cooler. Everything else squeezed in to the SUV...(Thanks God, You are SO Good!)

Vegas wasn't our thing. We are at the end of this trip and with the car problems and travel weariness just didn't allow us to enjoy Vegas. So, we got up early this morning (Tuesday) got the SUV and headed out. We drove 500 miles today and are putting our heads down in Grand Junction, CO.

Thank you to everyone for your thoughts, prayers, concern and even offers to come pick us up. We have come to appreciate our precious family and church family. We are safe and sound and are looking forward to arriving home this weekend. We will update the blog with photos in the next day or two. Oh...I should mention. We stayed at the Tropicana in Las Vegas. It was a beautiful hotel, but this poor pastor can't afford $13 internet charges per day...ain't no way!!! That's why we haven't posted in a few days.

Our love to all...
Mark, Jen, Bailee, Brekyn and Gloria Payton Stewart (our GPS)