And....I'm back!
Right now I am currently in Midland Texas, the second to last stop on my trek. I just came from Lubbock and Next tuesday I fly to El Paso for my final week on tour. I can't believe that I'm passed the halfway point already. In some ways I do feel tired-there have been a lot of new environments to process, new cultures to interact with, speaking to different groups of people, but it's not like what I was expecting. I was expecting to reach this point and be ready to get home. And while I do look forward to getting back to Longview and not living out of suitcase, I also am really enjoying myself quite a bit! One of my favorite places was, surprisingly, in McAllen-the border town that I was originally concerned to drive to. But I think what made my time there so great was that for those few days I had a "ministry" partner. A woman I met at my very first church on tour traveled down with me, and I thank God how he worked that out. When I first met Connie, I felt a kindredness to her and I was sad that my time with her was so short. And then when the Lord opened the door for me to have someone travel down to the border with  me, I jumped at the opportunity. It also showed me that, though I can do go on tour alone, I prefer to be in partnership with someone. There is a reason why Paul had someone with him when he went out on his missionary journeys. I just enjoy it better with someone else.
The second great thing about this trip was the people we stayed with. This couple isn't originally from the CMA background, so it was fun to hear about how God lead them to start a church in the Alliance, and I'm thrilled to see what God has in store for them as they begin their new journey. And I felt a kindredness to them as well; as if we've known each other for along time. They were so gracious, AND Lowell was a coffee connoisseur! :) Waking up to the delightful smell of premium fresh ground coffee was AMAZING!  Now, Beth didn't like coffee as much, but I didn't hold that against her! :) lol. And actually we did a lot of LOL. I haven't laughed that hard or that much in a long time. I think I burned most of my daily calories by laughing! Thank you Jesus for those moments.
I am having some issues uploading some of my photos on this blog, so I will try to upload them to an album in Facebook so ya'll can see the sights I've been able to see. :)

Until we meet again...