Faith Trip

Two day faith trip.
Me and Joel.
On the two hottest days of the year so far.
Just the clothes on our backs, a Bible, and a water-bottle.
Why did i stick God in a box?
He jumped out of that box... yeah, He likes to do that.

So it started when Joel called me on wednesday and wanted to work out a time to do our faith trip. I had finished discipleship class at least a month before and was supposed to do my faith trip after that but i just got reallly busy with work and life... but thats okay because God had a better plan. :)
The first thing God did was work out my schedule so i could even go. i didnt have two days off in a row and i didnt think i would be able to work it out to get them off.
My boss doesnt like me changing her schedule. at all.
So when i got to work the next day and looked at my schedule it was changed. i had tuesday and wednesday off. i hadnt said anything to her. it was cool.
So we met at coffee outfitters in adna at 8am tuesday and our goal was to get to Pe Ell which was about 20 miles away. It seemed like a doable goal... at the time.
Prentice blessed us with a free coffee and we started out.
Not two minutes down the road Ben Booher passed us in his car and turned around to talk to us.
He encouraged us not to experiment with our faith, to take our faith seriously.
that was really encouraging. There is no warranty for our faith, if we really have it, it will work. Period.
he prayed for us and we continued on our way, walking down an old railroad track that had been turned into a walking trail. Just walking and talking. Encouraging eachother and catching up on life.
After a while we got off the trail and started walking along the highway... which alot hotter and sorta scary sometimes... semi trucks passing ten feet from you going 60 mph is frightening... i almost got blown over a few times. ;p
Then my allergies started bugging me something bad.
my head was about to explode. uhg. it was not cool.
so joel prayed for me. that was a smart thing to do.
We kept walking and talking, picking up shiny things off the side of the road.
I saw something on the side of the road so i picked it up.
It was a little pill bottle. My first reaction was to just put it down and leave it. I figured it was probably an empty bottle of something bad...
but i didnt put it down, i kept looking at it. i scraped off the dirt so i could see what it was... it said allergy medicine.
I was like, yay, a empty bottle of allergy medicine... but i shook it and it wasnt empty.
I assumed that it was at least partially used so i didnt want to use them but when i opened the lid...
IT WAS STILL SEALED.
and it was not expired.
seriously what are the odds of finding an un-opened, un-expired bottle of allergy medicine on the side of the road?
pretty stinkin slim if you ask me.
So i took some.
And praised the Lord for His incerdible bounty.
Hallelujah!
So we kept walking and walking and walking, taking a break, eating a chapter every now and then, praying, sweating... but we didnt stop to talk to anyone because we were focused on getting to Pe Ell.
THAT was a bit of a mistake.
We decided to stop at rainbow falls and have some lunch.
As we were sitting there digesting Luke 11 and a few Psalms we were both convicted that what we were doing was pretty pointless, we had walked 12 miles and had not shared the Gospel with a single soul. Why would God continue to bless us if we were not doing anything for Him?
Our goal was to share the Gospel, but we had shifted our focus to getting to Pe ell.
And similarly, in our Christian walks we often just focus on getting to Heaven, our destination, but once we are saved we cannot affect our destination... only what is inbetween here and there. We are not in a fight for our souls, if we have given Christ control of our lives then our souls are secure in His arms, instead, we are in a battle for others' souls. the souls of those who do not know Him.

We got up after a while with a new focus; to share the gospel, that was why we were there, after all.
We tried to talk to a biker-lady at the park but she wanted nothing to do with the gospel.
Continuing down the road, the first house we came to we knocked on the door and talked to guy who lived there.
He was a christian, in need of some fellowship i think, we stayed and talked and fellowshipped with him for well over an hour.
he asked us where we were trying to go so we told him that we were going to try to get to a lady in our church's house. We knew she lived nearby but we didnt know where.
He offered us a phonebook and a ride over there.
We accepted and he drove us there.
After we thanked him profusely for his kindness he left us with these words:
"KEEP YOUR FOCUS ON GOD, AND GOD ONLY"

We walked up the lady's house and found her in her barn, feeding her dogs.
She was surprised to see us but she lets us hang out.
She lived alone so we offered to help her out with anything on the farm but she couldnt think of anything to do. So we just spent the evening talking to her, we did a Bible study, and talked some more.
All this time she didnt offer us any food. And we, trying to follow the rules of the faith walk, didnt ask for any.
about 930 she said we could sleep on her porch, gave us some blankets and stuff and we bedded down for the night. Right as we were almost asleep she walked up with a bowl of strawberries and told us to eat them.
They were the BEST strawberries i had ever had. Oh man.
"chew them really well so we get the most energy out of them" said joel.
We both slept fitfully, which is about as good as you sleep on a porch, and woke with the sun.
We got up and decided to clean up her porch which was rather a mess. We did that for a few hours, got it waaaay cleaner that it was. She fed us some toast and hardboiled eggs. it was good.
We finished her porch and got ready to start back.
She told us that was going into town that evening and offered to pick us up if she saw us.
So we headed back towards town, determined to stop and knock on every door we passed.
So we did. The results were shocking.
First guy; christian.
second guy; christian
etc
etc
etc
etc
get the picture?
We talked to one guy in particular who was superrrrrrrr encouraging. Like alot.
He had been anointed by the Holy Spirit to be able to understand and teach the Bible.
Dude i wish i could teach like he did. He spoke exactly what joel and i needed to hear.
Another christian.
another christian.
One lady who wasnt a christian; *gasp* she didnt want to hear what we had to say.
She said that religions were like fruits, some were apples and some were oranges, you just had to find out what one you liked the best.
Then another christian.
Then a looooonnnngggg stretch of spread out houses, big dogs. and no trespassing or you will be shot signs.
Then joel's leg starting hurting really bad.
We rested on the side if the road for a little bit, ate some more Bible, and rested some more.
Soon thereafter Barb, the aforementioned lady, whose house we stayed at drove by and picked us up.
We drove home, God taught us alot, increased our faith, and showed me that i can go a whole day without food.


the end.