Picture post.

  We've been smitten by the west. We find it still somewhat untamed and wildly beautiful. We have so MANY pictures from two weeks of good times; some adventuresome, some hard, and others lovely. 

So, of these "MANY" pictures I give you the favorites (this doesn't always mean the "best" but the ones that evoke the memory of the good times.) in my promised "picture post" 

 Tea and product tables.

 Swinging Little Girls while their family sings as the sun sets in Tennessee.

"Here is the church, here is the steeple, open the doors, and see all the people, close the doors and hear them pray, open the doors and they all walk away."  Story of our lives? :) 

Meet the Yoders for lunch as we pass through their area. A blessing they are to our family. (note that I'm behind the camera and boys are already in the motor home. Also note the smashing background of motorcycles and cars, it was my idea. *Make sarcastic face..)

Day off and and site seeing...walking grassy paths to see bison and get exercise. 

I love these ladies, and doing this trip with them.
"No, we don't often pose by tall fences, there are bison behind it...somewhere."

 Blurry picture of the "fabulous" Mulletts.

 This little lady picks...flowers..weeds..grass...with passion and unending consistency. "No Chantaia, the church people planted those flowers, you can't pick those."

A bit of the hands-on .

So we're in Nebraska as the sun sets, I see this little church with tall white steeple as we turn onto a tiny dirt road and  do a high-pitched "Is that the church we're going to?"  Daddy believes so....I grab the camera to see if I could capture how cute it looked at the end of the long road...not really.

Daddy tells the story like this: "I saw a sign that said 'gravel ends here'. In my mind that means there's blacktop ahead!" If  we tell this to Nebraskans they laugh in unbelief and know what's about to take place. It had rained allot and was still flashing lightening in the open sky, the dirt was so soggy. I just get done taking the picture of the little white-steepled church when Father says "Guys, it's almost sucking me in. I hardly have control..." motor home begins to slide to the right.. "I'm serious, I can't do anything..." motor home slides off the road sideways beginning to hit a drop-off ditch and we are all saying things like "Oh Jesus..."..."Lord please protect us.." as we feel as though we are going to tip over. Motor home stops and we thank God.   But now what...?

We get rain boots and such on the feet, I make tea in the very sideways motor home, sweatshirts, jackets, cup of tea and we head for the door. I walk the little Nebraskan road and have prayer time with my cup of tea, lightning acting as dramatic backdrop to the large fields and irrigation systems. We wait outside for the John Deere (glad we had connections that had connections.).  It's dark by the time it arrives...I stand far off and drink tea as I watch it pull the motor home free from the "miry clay". John Deere pulls our home past me over the dirt road to the church, we hop in Mr. Wolfer's SUV and head to the church a on a safer road, bags on our feet because we have piles of mud on them.
Sound check till close to 1:00 a.m.
Motor home looks horrendous inside. Kyle plops on the back bed after sound check and Mother doesn't even know he's there because of all the clothes laying on the bed until he speaks.
Filling jars with bulk items we'ed gotten at a health food store earlier that day, granola jar drops on tile floor and shatters... and we just sigh and clean up the mess. At least we have a motor home to clean up. One of those nights. ;) We still laugh that we have our motor home drama on straight, flat roads. The west has hidden dangers we're not used to. :) 

The little church really was enchanting. Baby grande piano to play, old wooden benches, stained glass windows, and good fellowship with long-time-no-see friends.

We like libraries very dearly. Visiting darling ones in different states (Iowa) for internet services is a favorite.

Because of a motor home problem Duanes had we were able to have supper, spend the night, and breakfast with the Wissmann family. Such a blessing that the problem happened on a day off and near dear friends. Over and over again we see His hand making our "bad things" happen at good times. :) Here is Mother and Mrs. Wissmann cleaning the mud from our shoes due to the muddy renegade several nights prior. (Mother says noone else knows all the visioning we did while out there alone.)

What sweet times.  Good food, laughter and sharing. It was so refreshing for us.

"Mom what are we wearing tonight?" is a question asked nightly. "Aqua" she says.

I am a biggest fan of our set-up and tear-down crew. They have it down to a science. 

We love getting to know new people and making friends. It's my passion in these services; smiling at them as they buy the CD, or getting to know who they are, what they're about, and who God is in and through them.

Chantia has good out-of-state relationships too. :)

Driving after services is a favorite. Here Gracie and I do cross word puzzles from a book she got at Barnes and Nobles earlier that day. She's the only one who doesn't have a bunk so Mother, nightly, puts up this sheet so she can feel as though "her couch" is a bunk. :)

Mother highlights where we've been and points out to Grace where we're going.

Daddy pulls aside for a breather and I take advantage with the camera.

On this day we traveled...traveled..and yet more traveling. Up at 6:30a.m. because we're stuck in snow (explained later), breakfast, Bible and tea, nap, lunch of of rap and organic butternut squash soup, photography book work, movie...still not there. 

Father out in the cold getting the huge amount fuel.

Lovely supper with the Atnips at the hotel that we had a service at. 

It was a pleasure to have the Atnips join us for an evening in Wyoming.

Opening congregational singing.

And it snowed and snowed...

The roads are open he said. You'll be fine he said. Go through Yellow stone he said. 

6:30 A.M. and we're stuck in the snow on a mountain. I'm laying in my bunk with the curtain open, and see the white outside. Then I hear Daddy saying...."Jesus...oh Jesus...oh dear Lord....Jesus..." (The road that is supposedly "clear" and "open" has only been trodden by ONE vehicle, and the mountain was getting steeper and Father knew it was just going to get worse....and anything like this is triple trouble when you have 40ft. motor home and trailer taboot.)  So then we're stuck...8 miles up till we got to a plateau,Mr Atnip and sons (were gonna go bear hunting but cancelled because of snow)took our trailer so we could turn around after the snow plows came and  to headed back down to a bigger road.By the time the snow plow came we were surrounded with friendly people with snow mobiles on their trucks.

But it was sooo beautiful.

Father tries to figure out how to fix the problem. And we thank God for the help that came.

\

Kyra turns two, so we celebrate in Duanes motor home after a service in Montana.

Lots of balloons 

We do lots of smoothies on the road. 

Days off are stupendous. On this one we did laundry, motor home cleaning, baking, kitchen work, shopping, and finished the day off with marvelous relaxation.  

On that day off evening we found a hotel that has an indoor slide and pool that anyone could visit, so we enjoyed some swim time and then came out to the motor home for movie, fresh biscotti, and facials.Days like this keep you going and refresh you for the days and ministry to come next.  

Hutterite colony was wonderful. We met some friends at a service that invited us to come visit their colony. we enjoyed it so much! They fed us a wonderful meal!

This is a year-old colony, so everything is very new as well as some things yet undone. Here the ladies are working in their tempory kitchen.  

Men talk of work.

Women talk of home, and these women have beautiful new ones.

Braiding for carpet making.

Sweet, new friends.

Then they sang for us and sent us off with lots of fresh produce, such a blessing.

I enjoy visiting people that somehow should be very "different" and yet they are entirely normal and wonderful people, like these. 

It was highly lovely to have breakfast with dear ladies from Canada several mornings ago. Fellowship and such always does the heart on these tips. They blessed us muchly. 

Oh, visiting old western towns.

 We're big fans of Mounties, so while in Alberta we briefly visited a town where Mounties had a fort that is now a tourist attraction.  This was on another day off where we were able to do some wonderful site-seeing.

Daddy is usually not a bit picture person, but somehow days off make a person a bit care-free and silly, so he decides he wants a solo picture with the buffalo. ;) 

It's a place called "Head Smashed-In Buffalo Jump, telling of how the Indians killed buffalo before they had guns and horses. Through genius plan they got the herd to stampede off a certain cliff that would take them to their death. Highly interesting.

Here we stand at the location where the buffalo would stampede and fall off the cliff, looking down to our motor home.

It was incredibly freeing to be up with on this cliff in the western wind. some of us had a hard time remaining tamed to the side walk. :)

Then we had a most interesting Indian share with us about his heritage. 

And then the rockys. Oh, they were a marvel, and we enjoyed the site-seeing at Waterton Park.

Met up with Duanes as they were coming down from the mountain and we were going up. 

It was their anniversary this week. :) 20 years. 

They're so dear.

This was a frozen-over lake, and Derek went as far out as he thought safe. :) He's such a good western boy,  he could move here he says. 

Funny how they celebreate each small victory in life, huh?

I love them in this stage...they make everything so fun. 

The parents were cold and went to the motor home and so we did this really random self portrait picture thing...

Father and the rig he takes care of for us, so faithfully. :)

Yes, that's a black bear. Yes, that's a van of Chinese people that stole all the sights. We forgive them...really, we do, because we scared away their bear with our loud biggness. 

Ah yes...we were warned of the amazing sunsets...and it doesn't do so until around nine or ten..glorious. 

If we'd go home now it would have been all worth it; such wonderful things taking place, but we're grateful we have six more weeks to go, with lots more adventure. 

~Deborah