Road Trip

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Michelle and I love traveling. We do it all of the time. By road, by plan, by train, stateside, overseas, you name it we've done it and loved it. This year for spring break Michelle and I went down to Lubbock, Texas. We left in the late afternoon on Friday already tired from a week of craziness because of midterms. The drive is over 1,000 miles one way and our mp3 payer's f.m. radio transmitter wasn't working so we stopped in Jackson,TN (Which is actually where Michelle was born) and got some new CD's with a birthday gift card my grandmother gave me for my birthday.

We decided to stop at Bobby and Melissa and take a nap for a couple of hours. Before heading off to Lubbock we of course had to make a stop at Shades of Brown coffee shop to get our morning dose of caffeine for the road.

8 hours later we arrived in Lubbock and the AIM graduation ceremony had just ended. Michelle and I were still able to see many of cherished friends that we know from the AIM world. And!... we were even able to my sister Jessica who was visiting from Guadalajara, Mexico.

We stayed in Lubbock until Wednesday morning and had a blast getting to spend time with everyone. Michelle stayed at the Baker's house while we were there, and I stayed 2 nights at my old apartment with Josh Tucker and then 2 nights with Thomas at his place. Returning to Lubbock is a surreal experience. The city is full of memories, all the way back to LCU's Camp Champion when I was just a kid, to the memories of walking the streets downtown looking for a hotel when I originally tried to join Sunset in 2003. Plus there is all of the time that I spent actually living in Lubbock as an AIMer and while I went through Sunset. Lubbock is a historic place for us now.

One of my favorite things about returning to Lubbock is visiting the house churches. About a year ago our friends Josh and Holly Tracy started a house church. There was only the two of them the first time that they met. Then the second time Thomas and I were there as well. Today, there are about 40 people attending the house churches! That's right, "churches," as in more than one. They've already had a church plant and they are even talking about planting a third. Everywhere we went in Lubbock and no matter who it was that we were with --people were talking about this house church. I don't think that anyone can deny (whether they like the house church or not) that something big is going on in Lubbock, Texas. It's awesome how rapidly God has caused this Christ focused group to spread across the city as they allow the Spirit to fully take hold of their lives.



On our way back home we stopped in Shawnee, Oklahoma to see our Friends Chris and Jessica Johnson. It was awesome to here about what God is doing there and through their church. We were able to worship with the youth (who were pretty awesome by the way) on Wednesday night, and hangout with some of the church family after services for a couple of hours at the local Sonic. Chris Johnson is someone who I greatly respect and look up to. While I was studying at Sunset I would here my instructors tell stories about people like the Jonhsons, the Rushs and the Hendersons, and all that they were doing on their mission fields. These stories captivated me as I would dream about one day doing similar things with my friends as the next generation of Spirit lead and Love driven missionaries. So, the two days spent with Chris and Jessica were extremely inspiring and encouraging.

The last visit on our road trip was a stop back in Tulsa to see Bobby and Melissa. We had a blast just relaxing and kicking it back together. We were even able to on a few adventures right inside of their home as we all worked together to try and find some renegade mice (click here to watch the video).



We left Tulsa at about 6 p.m. and pulled into Melinda and Ryan's in Murray at 3:30 a.m. We traveled over 2,500 in the end. That's far enough to cross the country all the way from New York, to California. Now that's a road trip!