Resting

This year has been full. We have traveled this year more than we have in any other year. And I am tired. I know we have had some down time. I had a month of staying with my parents in October while Ben was up in North Dakota working on the sugar beet harvest. But for me, there is something that is not restful when I am around or staying with other people. It is not the other people, it is me. I am an introvert to the core of my being. It doesn’t mean that I don’t like people. I love people, I love hanging out with people. However, it does mean that I get my energy from being alone and having alone time. Since we have been traveling so much I haven’t had the chance to get much alone time and I felt like I had hit a wall of sorts. I had become very emotional and tired and was beginning to feel like I couldn’t function. So Ben and I headed to our friend’s land in Alabama, and it has been just what I needed. We are parked out in an old horse coral. We have plenty of space to feel like we are on our own, yet have friends here as well and have a sense of our neighbors and friends being close by. It is perfect.

I think I have been going through a time of reassessing what I am doing with my life and what I want to do with my life. I have been thinking about how Ben and I live in an RV and it is hard sometimes to not have a permanent place to live. At the same time, I love to travel and don’t think it’s time for us to give that up. I had a friend say recently that we need to do what is best for Ben and I. That was really good to hear because I don’t think I had ever thought about what was best for Ben and I. It now feels really good to take that into consideration and begin to ponder what the best is for us. So this is not a blog saying that we are doing this or that. I don’t know what we are doing other than following the path that the Lord has set before us and right now that is traveling with the Jesus Kitchen and I am really looking forward to heading back out in February. In the meantime, we are heading to Georgia for Thanksgiving and then we’ll head to Massachusetts, then back to Minnesota for Christmas and to work a bit before hitting the road again.

West Coast Tour: Endings

The last leg of our journey consisted of a fun adventure to the Grand Canyon. Neither Ben nor I had ever been there before and it was quite amazing. It looks fake! And there was so much about it to take in…I would love to go back someday and take a trip rafting down the Colorado River or take a hike down into the canyon itself.


From there we wandered through the Painted Desert and into Utah to take a look at Arches National Park. The desert is such a beautiful place in its own right. I had never really desired to go to a desert because it’s too hot for me…and it was hot but it has a beauty all its own and I’m glad we took a little journey into it to see it.




From there we landed at our friend Jodi and Louise’s house in Colorado. They are a wonderful couple from one of the other Christian kitchens at the Gatherings that we go to. They spoiled us while we were with them…by giving us good food to eat, good food for our souls and lots of adventure. We drove over a 13,114 foot mountain in an old suburban truck, went for beautiful day drives and went horseback riding in the mountains.



We were truly blessed while we were on this trip. We had lots of adventure and got to see so much of God’s beautiful creation. I don’t think I will ever forget this trip…the trip the Lord said to go on and it was cool to see Him not only in His creation but in His people as well. The body of Christ is a beautiful thing and we are so encouraged and blessed by it!

West Coast Tour: California

I have to say that California, as a state, is not my favorite of places. However, some of the most wonderful people I know live there! We spent a loooooooong time in California…most of our trip out west was actually spent here. Here is a synopsis of what we did:

Went to the Redwood Forest, visited friends in Eureka, went to the Lord’s Land (it is now a YWAM base but used to be a Hippie-Christian commune and all the little cabins are made with amazing carpentry and are beautiful), went back to Eureka to visit the same friends as before, went to Redding to visit Bethel Church, spent a couple nights resting at a ministry just outside of San Francisco, went to San Francisco to visit our lovely friends at Outer Circle, went to Bakersfield where we spent a month with our friends Bryan and Emily (really Emily kidnapped us for that long… : ) ok, not really, but it was super fun to be there!), we met an amazing church family at Hingepoint church, went to the Sequoia National Park and saw the biggest tree in the world, visited Wes and Nica in LA AND went to Disneyland.


Wow. That was a lot of stuff in the five weeks that we were in California. But all of it was wonderful and we had such a blast!