We arrived in Amarillo, Texas late on Tuesday night. The night ended with a beautiful lightning storm that consumed the whole sky. There was no thunder, just a continuous stream of lightning bolts. Ginger pulled out the video camera to try and capture a bit of it. The second it turned on the sky began to light up even more, Ginger turned to me with a smirk and said "Looks like God's showing off."
After a good nights sleep we made our way to Albuquerque, New Mexico. Jordan (who is represented by the octopus) told us about his church here, so as we arrived we scooted on over to see Calvary's wednesday night service.
The worship was sweeet and it was nice to dig into the Word of God. After we spoke with pastor about volunteer opportunities in the community and were given a nice little list of places that would love help. The night I enjoyed some soup and salad. The boys enjoyed discovering that the car we parked in front of had a red octopus sitting in their front dash.
In fact I think it made their night. We almost lost Jordan because they thought it would be so funny just to leave him on the window, staring into the eyes of the pretty red octopus.
Ultimately we all agreed we couldn't do that to Jordan, so the boys settled with leaving a note on the window of the red octopus' car letting the owner know that we also had a octopus.
That night we all discussed a lot of things. It was good. This trip has really opened our eyes to what t truly means to walk in love. How difficult it can be, how necessary it is. Walking in love is so very important. It's a decision. It's a life style. It's the way we are called to live.
So that's what we must do.
Keep growing, loving, and learning.
On Thursday we looked up the different organizations that we could volunteer at. We found this two places, one called Joy Junction that cares for and feeds homeless families in the area. The other was a shelter for women, the Barrett House. Both had a list of supplies they needed, so we put some pen to paper and headed down to Walmart to do some shopping.
We got lots and lots of food and hygiene products along with a few cleaning supplies. The only tricky part was filling our already full car with all of these things. But we managed to move things and people around enough to fit everyone in semi-comfortable.
The highlight of that trip was that Stan's entire right leg fell asleep before we got to Joy Junction. So when we got out he was dancing around like a crazy person, trying not to fall over, and fake crying rather loudly. I don't think I've laughed that hard in awhile :)
At Joy Junction we swept, mopped, and took out trash. We didn't get to interact with a lot of people, but it was nice to just be able to be there.
I think the fact that we were serving on our own free will was astonishing to many of guests and other volunteers.
After dropping off the other supplies at the Barrett House, we made our way down Route 66 to find somewhere to eat. Instead we found the coooolest hostile! so we totally had to stop.
They were full for the night, but we were able to talk with the people who worked there. They were really cool to talk with and it was awesome talking to them about love. Our tummies kept rumbling to be heading down to this cute little Route 66 diner for some shakes.
We're very thankful for the the support we've been given <3
Today we move on to the Grand Canyon! We're still figuring out details on camping and hostels but I know it will all be worked out. We hope to volunteer at an Indian reservation somewhere, but I'm not sure if we're going to be able to.
I can't wait to meet more people and keep learning to walk in love :)
<3emilyy>
