Roswell, New Mexico

Leaving Carlsbad, we drove to Roswell, New Mexico. The only reason we went there was, of course, aliens and UFOs! We had to see what this was all about. And they were definitely everywhere. Even the Walmart had a UFO on it. It was a bit hokey, but there was a charm to it. We camped that night in an RV park God led us to. It was definitely his provision, because we had no idea where we were going to sleep that night. The woman who worked there was so sweet, and allowed us to set up our tent and make ourselves at home. The facilities there were nice and clean and there was even a game room with a couch and T.V. We heated up leftovers and then spent the evening doing our own things. That night, I had trouble sleeping because of bugs that were in our tent. It’s almost impossible for some not to get in when you climb in and out. My plan was for us to get in the tent as quickly as possible, zip it up, then turn on our lantern and attract all bugs. Once they were landing all over the lantern, Taylor could kill them for me. And he patiently did- each and EVERY bug. However, when we laid down to sleep, I could still hear a couple of them buzzing and I couldn’t stop thinking about the fact that they might land on me. I was glad when morning came. We then went to the UFO museum and got to hear the story of what happened that "fateful" day in Roswell. It was fun to hear the history and listen to people’s comments as they walked through (some were true skeptics, some faithful believers).  In fact, the woman at the front desk checking us in randomly said, "Yeah, I wasn't a believer until I started working here."  For a second, I got really excited because she said she was a Believer.  And then I realized she was talking about the aliens and not about God!  Oh well, I pray she becomes a true Believer one day as well (or who knows, maybe she already is?).  I'll end with a quote from a chat I had with my sister on the internet while in Roswell:
Kristen: "I think I just spotted an alien!"
Caitlin: "Nope, its just Taylor."

-Kristen

The Christ Experience

When Kristen and I were leaving the Carlsbad Caverns Visitors Center we were left awestruck by the beauty of what seemed like endless vastness below the earth's crust that God had used many years to create.  As we came out to our Honda Civic exhausted and hungry we happened to run into two young ladies, around the same ages as us, named Hillary and Lindsay.  They were sitting in the back of their compact, eating snacks and chatting away like two best friends.  After striking up conversation we discovered that they had just recently arrived at the park and were getting ready to head into the abyss.  After a few minutes I discovered that they had become acquaintances while working for a science news broadcast that airs on NPR out of Austin, TX. They explained that they were on an adventure together to take time off work.  As we continued on in conversation somehow our plans for our trip came up and thus the name of Jesus. Seizing this opportunity to share his love and hope to them I asked, “Do you know Him?” Lindsay didn't really respond but her friend, after I further stated that it may be a strange question to ask, said, “No its not.” She then proceeded with man umms and oohhs, to figure out whether she knew him. She then at last confessed, “I know of him historically speaking but, no I don't really know him personally.” I replied that many people know of his historicity but have never really come to experience him, what I simply explained to be the Christ experience. I shared with them how my wife and I have experienced Christ's love and mercy in our own lives and how exciting it is to know that the creator of the caverns and everything else they could see knows us personally. I urged them to have a Christ experience as well, that getting to know God is the greatest adventure of a lifetime and that they could find out more about Him through reading the Bible. After they left we placed a Teen Bible (it was one of the only ones we had) on their windshield with a note referring to a verse in Colossians about how Christ has taken the penalty of our sins upon Himself. We wrote again how getting to know Him will lead the both of them on the greatest adventures they will ever embark upon. Sometimes God places people in our paths who just need to be reminded that they can experience Christ for themselves and that he does care to know about them and forgive them of their sins. He is more than a character of history. He is the Son of God, Prince of Peace, lord of Life. Is He more than just a name in an old book to you? Have you had your own Christ experience? I would challenge that even if you have gotten wet in the waters of baptism, sang the good songs as you sat in a pew and even taken the preacher's sermons to heart that you may not know Jesus. You may not have actually personally experienced His tangible love. Have you ever really sought after Him with all your mind, heart, soul and strength or do you just pretend that everything will go alright for you because you do what your parents or church told you to do since you were a kid? Following Jesus is not for those who want to pretend and get around obeying and actually having an authentic relationship with the creator of the universe. Jesus said that if you love Him you will obey His commands and then He will send the comforter, the Spirit of Life to come live inside of you. Have you ever asked for the Holy Spirit? If not then don't wait. Don't settle for religion that has, “A form of godliness but denying its power.” be empowered by the breath of God and have your own Christ experience.

Blog Error

Hey guys!  This is just a real quick post to let you know that we had some "blogging" problems and the blog posts written before this one are out of order.  You may not have actually read all the newest things we posted.  Most of you seemed to have read the Big Bend post, but there are actually two other posts that occurred AFTER Big Bend..but they are out of order.  SO- here's the order in which the below posts should be read: First is the Big Bend post, then the post about White Sands, New Mexico and then the post about Carlsbad Caverns.  Once you read all of those, we are back on track and any posts written after this one should be in correct order.  Sorry for the mess up!  Thanks for all your comments, we'd love to hear more- they encourage us so much! 

Taylor and Kristen

Abilene, TX and Big Bend National Park

Hey to everyone reading this! This is Kristen writing, and my first time to get to share with you my own thoughts on how things are going so far. Taylor and I will each be writing our own entries related to the things we have been doing (or really, what God has been doing for us and through us) since we left the Dallas/Ft. Worth area almost a week ago. We wish we could have updated sooner, but we do not often have access to the internet unless we are staying in someone’s home (which we are right now). Let me update you on life since Dallas. When we left, we originally planned to drive all the way down to Big Bend National Park (for those of you who don’t know, this is waaaaay down in southwest Texas). However, we wanted to stop in Abilene on the way so that Taylor could show me the town, his old house where he lived as a kid, and his church. With this stop, as well as other things along the way, we realized it would be best to drive as far as we could and then stay in a motel. We got to the town of Alpine, only about an hour from Big Bend (closest town with motels still in it). But I’ll get back to that. First we stopped in Abilene, and our faithful GPS led us right to the doorstep of Taylor’s childhood home. We knocked on the door, met the guy who lives there now, and he allowed us to take a picture and film a little video. Taylor commented that everything looked so much smaller than it did when he was a kid. We also got to bless the guy by praying for him before we left. We drove to his old church, Southern Hills C of C, and took a look at it. They’ve added on additions since he was a wee one. By the way, I failed to mention earlier, but when we left Taylor’s cousin Lisa’s house, she sent us off with a card to open later. When we opened it, we found $50.00 inside and a package of stamps. It was so unexpected and yet we knew this was God making sure to remind us that He is taking care of us in every way. That is part of the purpose of this trip, or at least it’s the purpose of why we are approaching this trip the way we are. We didn’t want to come too prepared, we wanted to lean on God and let Him care for as along the way. He used Lisa to do that in a way we were not expecting. It increased our faith abundantly. Moving on through Texas, we made it to the town of Alpine, fairly close to Big Bend and spent the night in a motel. Get ready to call me spoiled, but I confess I’ve never spent the night in a MOTEL before- only what most would consider HOTELS (Hampton Inn, Comfort Inn, etc.). This was a new experience for me and only cost us $35.00 for the night- compared to the Best Western up the road for $91.00. What I learned from this experience was not to judge a book by its cover. The motel (called ‘Alpine Inn’) was actually not bad. It was clean (trust me, I checked the sheets in depth) and met all our needs. There were a few shabby things about it, but overall I couldn’t believe that we only had to pay $35.00 for a decent motel room. Now I admit, I’ll always take a Hampton Inn over anything else, but it encouraged me to know that God can still meet all my needs for only $35.00! But there was an even bigger bonus involved. The next morning, we were able to bless the maid who took care of our room. She was obviously Indian (as in, the country) and was working hard cleaning all of the rooms. We wanted to pray a blessing over her on our way out, but every time we went outside to catch her, she went into a room to clean. So instead, Taylor had the idea of taking one of the Bibles we had brought on this trip to give away, wrote a note inside it and left her a tip. The note he wrote talked about the color red (a very significant color in India and a sign of purity) and how the words of Jesus are written in red because his words are pure as well. Then he wrote about how much Jesus loves her and wants her to know him so he can give her Life. We have no idea what this will do for her but that’s not important for us to know. All we know is, God wanted her to know that he loves her, and he wanted us to be the ones to tell her. And if that’s the only reason we stayed there, then that was enough. Later that morning, we drove the beautiful drive to Big Bend. There were mountains all around, though more desert-looking in nature rather than forest-looking. The actual national park had lots of trees, though. We found a campsite in the park and set up tent. This was my first time to camp. Boy, was it interesting. I really enjoyed setting up the tent and we purposely chose to camp at a higher elevation spot because it was much cooler there. The weather was great, I was even chilly at night. After setting up, we went on a hike called the Lost Mine Trail. It was a 5 mile hike, total. It was very beautiful and we saw some amazing scenery along the way. However, as much as I wanted to call myself “outdoorsy” toting my Camelback; wearing my Merrell hiking shoes; and sporting my Northface shorts, I must admit: the entire way up the trail, I was paranoid because I saw a sign warning us of mountain lions in the area. It explained what to do if you saw one and how it was not recommended that children be taken on this hike. I wanted to turn around immediately, but I knew that it was going to be the same anywhere in the area. I “bravely” proceeded forward, but had a hard time enjoying myself because I was so afraid of spotting one. (In case you are worried, I’ll go ahead and ease your minds- we never saw one). Once we made it to the top, saw the gorgeous views (see our photos) and headed down, I was doing better and was able to enjoy myself more. Still, once we finished the trail, I was quietly heaving huge sighs of relief to myself. That evening we cooked a meal on our camping stove and spent time reading our Bible together. However, when it was time for bed, as we pulled a few things from the trunk to brush our teeth, we shut the trunk and THEN realized our keys were inside of it. We hurried to find a park ranger in the dark using only our flashlights ( I was also not a fan of this because my flashlight was not enough light to spot bears or mountain lions). The park ranger informed us that the only person who had the equipment to safely break into our car was the security- and he wouldn’t be around until the morning. So we headed back to the tent and spent the night in our clothes. The next morning we had to wait a couple of hours for him to arrive, but it was okay because we spent time praying together and we even got to watch a deer walk around our campsite (so beautiful!). And once again, we got to bless him by praying over him before he left. Afterwards, he decided to inform us "since you're leaving" that the day before, a mountain lion had poked its head into a woman's tent where she and her two children were sitting.  As he chuckled (and I inwardly decided I wanted to go home) I realized this trip is going to be full of surprises!

-Kristen

Carlsbad Caverns

We stayed in Carlsbad for the night at another motel (we got in way too late to camp) and got to pray for the maids again in this place. Funnily enough, they were also Indian. In the morning we went to Carlsbad Caverns, my favorite place so far. The caverns, or caves, were amazing! God has really done some amazing things underground. I wish my pictures could do it justice, but they come nowhere close. The lighting was too bad to get any good pictures. The Caverns were absolutely huge, they went on and on. We did a self-tour while killing time, and then did a guided tour. During the guided tour, we learned about the guy who discovered the caves. Can you imagine being the first person to discover something like that? During the tour, the guide gave us a “black out” in which all the lighting is turned off. We were able to experience true, total darkness. She told us that our eyes would never be able to adjust to this amount of darkness. I think that was my favorite part of the tour. God has really made some absolutely incredible creations!  In the next post, Taylor will explain an encounter we had with some girls in the parking lot, after the caverns, in which God used us to share Jesus with them!

-Kristen

White Sands, New Mexico

We next headed off to New Mexico, specifically to White Sands. If you haven’t heard of it (I hadn’t), it’s beautiful! This is hard to describe without taking away the beauty, but it was just miles of sand dunes, smooth and tall. We took a self-led tour through some of the dunes, where certain animals live. The rest of the dunes, we climbed all over and took pictures. We were fortunate enough to be there right around sunset, and the sun was so beautiful going down behind the dunes. There were all sorts of people there, some having dinner on top of the dunes, or sledding down the sides. I thought to myself, if I lived around here, I think I would get a group of friends together all the time and come play at the dunes. It only costs $5.00 to get in to see them, and it looks like so much fun to slide down them. If you think about it, $5.00 is much less expensive than a movie. But anyways, it was a fairly quick stop and then we drove the rest of the evening to Carlsbad, New Mexico.

-Kristen

In Fort Worth!

Hey everyone!

Kristen and I are at my cousin Lisa's home in Fort Worth, TX enjoying tacos a family. We headed out of Searcy in such a hurry that this was the first chance that we have had to update our blog in about a week. Friends from the Exchange (there is a link to the left) sent us off with prayer and encouragement A worship leader from Bethel Church in Redding California named Keith Luker came and spoke about praying for a double portion of the faith of our spiritual fathers and mothers and lead us in a refreshing time of praise. We left the exchange and spent the night with our friends the Ritchies who sent us of with wise words and encourafemtn the next morning. We made our way down towards Rusk, TX, to spend time with my Memaw Box and to catch up on some much needed rest. being around her is always heartwarming and her wisdom and love just seems to rub off on you if you take the time to talk. Being around reminds me of how blessed I am to have the natural family I have (of which most members are spiritual siblings as well). We caught up on stories from my dad's youth until my uncle Mick and Aunt Ramona showed up. After having good laughs and serious sighs we found ourselves sitting around reading the scriptures to each other just for the fun of it. That is just how my dad's family has always been. As Kristen and I expressed our dreams for the future and divulged about our road trip, my three relatives relayed the collective wisdom they had retrieved over the years. What I gathered to be the most emphasized piece of advice was that, as Memaw put it so well, that "We must learn to turn the suffering and other bad things in life into hay" or as I would put it "Turn your desert into an Oasis". Too often as followers of Christ we allow our suffering to pull us away from the "God of all comfort" who desires that we turn to him like chicks to a mother hen. The world (and even religion) teaches us that suffering inevitably leads to depression because in the midst of suffering there is no eternal hope. Christ confounded the hopeless of his day that "In this world you will have trouble, but take heart, I have overcome the world". Christ pointed his followers to the Father who can turn mourning into dancing and sorrow into joy. Even in the midst of suffering we can be filled with an unnatural joy and a peace that passes understanding. God desires that we turn to him because he desires to heal us. suffering can either push us deeper into depression or farther into faith. If your God is not big enough to comfort and even heal you maybe suffering is something that will bring a major paradigm shift into your life. His promises are eternally true and he desires that you ask of Him as a child asks for good things. My uncle Mick reminded me that Jesus no longer calls us servants, but friends. Actually, we are seated with Christ in heavenly places and the storehouses of that realm are open to us, and Jesus bids us to simply ask the Father in His name. On another note we are hanging out with our friends Ryan and Jen Locke tomorrow and afterwards on our way to Big Bend.

In Christ,

Taylor