WELCOME!
We Appreciate your Prayers and Support!
We will do our best to post a few photos and a daily update at the end of each of our work days. You will find our daily journal update posted below. If we miss a day, it is likely due to poor internet service and we will catch up as we are able.
On the right column below, please find to our specific prayer requests. Below you will also see our general itinerary and plan. We could not do this without you! God intends for everyone in His Kingdom to work together as a cohesive body - today, we are the hands. We need you, the heart, to be praying and lifting us up. Together, we can impact our world for Jesus. Thank you for your time and prayer focus - we don't take it for granted!
PRAYER
NEEDS:
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Smooth Travel and Safety
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Travel wisdom and sound vehicles and tires for the long trek
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That our luggage will arrive smoothly
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That the food order(s) are completed properly and easily and that our food team who are traveling a day ahead of us (Glenda & Sara) will have wisdom, peace, and safe-smooth travel.
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Health and strength for the entire team
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Wisdom and discernment for all the leaders
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That God will begin to work on softening our hearts and preparing us to grow in the ways He desires for each of us, individually, and as a group
DAY ONE
WEDNESDAY JUNE 18th
ALL THROUGH TSA SMOOTH AS BUTTER- A BIG THANK YOU TO OUR TEAM OF DRIVERS THAT JUMPED IN LAST MINUTE TO MAKE THIS WORK! (Shad, Patti, Sandrine, Andy, Jordan, and Brad!)
OUR FOOD TEAM THAT FLEW AHEAD ONE DAY TO SET EVERYTHING UP FOR US, GLENDA AND SARA, MADE IT SAFE YESTERDAY AND ARE PREPPING HOME-BASE FOR US TODAY. PLEASE PRAY FOR THEM AS THEY GET US SITUATED.
DAY TWO
THURSDAY JUNE 19th
Today was an adventure dear friends! Started the morning easy with am devotional time. Then we worked in teams to do earth and garden work, concrete projects and ditch digging.
Tonight, Sara and Glenda made delicious chicken fajitas with ice cream and brownies for dessert. And we hosted Elevate Navajo, a club that helps teens at the local high school be goal driven and aim high. A team of our kids played soccer and frisbee/football thing with them and we got to learn more about the Navajo community.
We had a bit of drama (please be praying for a speedy healing) but Connor accidentally launched a shovel into his shin, so we took a trip to Urgent Care in Gallup. He was a trooper and tougher than I would have been by FAR! He is patched up with 5 stitches and back with our team tonight.
Please pray that we will have continued safety as we work and that we serve and love in the way God leads. This is such a beautiful land and we are just getting started in what God has for us.
Thank you for going with us through prayer in this journey for the Kingdom together!
DAY THREE
FRIDAY JUNE 20th
A group from our team started the morning out by hiking up to the mesa top and watching the sunrise, "His mercies are new every morning." Then we got going with morning devos and breakfast and a jumped in full throttle working on the Across Nations campus.
Running trenches, moving rock (Kepler is an expert!) and laying concrete while building retainer wall cages. It was a great day of team-work for the kingdom! We enjoyed fry-bread and Navajo Tacos provided by our hosts, Norma, a kindergarten teacher at Hilltop school and native Navajo woman handmade the fry- bread for us and it was amazing!
We had a great time of sharing in scripture and worshiping Jesus together this evening. God is faithful and we are all learning, growing and enjoying the camaraderie of a team united in Christ.
Connor is doing excellent and his wound looks much better than yesterday and is healing nicely. Please pray for our teams continued health - we have a few that are feeling the heat and altitude, but nothing too serious. Please pray everyone continues with good hydration and safety.
Tomorrow will look similar to today, but we will have one small team going out with our local leader, Keith, to do some work off-campus during the morning.
Ginger is recording some spots for the radio station and Chuck Harper, Across Nation's General Director, will be interviewing kids and talking about how Jesus has impacted our life and why we are here.
Sunday we will be spending a good chunk of our day with local families and believers. Please pray we will be able to connect and show love. Rusty is making his way here with his truck and should meet us tomorrow evening. Please pray for his traveling safety.
It's late and my mattress is calling! Thank you for being a partner in this work - we appreciate every one of you!
DAY FOUR
SATURDAY JUNE 21st
We started the day with a great breakfast, prayer and getting right back to work.
A smaller team (Ben, Jeremy, Raymond, Mason, Henry, Beau) went to dig some needed trenches for utilities and water at a home the ministry is donating to a young woman who is pregnant and needs support.
Several of our kids did an amazing job sharing Jesus on the radio. Ivy, Noah Key, Gloria, McKinzie, and Connor were interviewed by Chuck Harper, Director of Across Nations. Ginger did digital work for the ministry and recorded various radio devotional segments including interviews with Jack, Jeremy, Jon Durgan, and Noah Craig.
The entire team worked hard and Megan and Jordan worked their tails off leading the team in wrapping up the outdoor work for this segment of our journey.
Sara and Melissa got laundry done at a local laundry mat for 28 people! Not shabby! Thank you ladies. Glenda worked to get the kitchen stuff ready to move tomorrow - that is some hot work.
Aubrielle and Ginger learned about Piccadilly's, a Navajo invented Ice Cone with Dill Pickles, Peach or Watermelon Syrup and koolaid, from our local leader, Keith Ancar - - Check out the pictures for who gave it a thumbs up versus a thumbs down.
This team is amazing! Everyone is being selfless and the Lord is working in our hearts and lives as we serve.
This evening after a delicious dinner of spaghetti, garlic bread, fresh watermelon and salad (THANK YOU GLENDA AND SARAH!) We headed out for a sunset hike up to the Window Rock and visited the Navajo Codetalkers Memorial, giving respect to those that served our nation in WWII.
We then enjoyed a time of worship and sharing out on the deck of our home-base, singing to the Lord, reading from His mighty word and enjoying each others thoughts.
Tomorrow we will head out to go to church with our Navajo brothers and sisters in the Lord and begin making our way across the reservation to Tuba City to continue serving.
Please pray for health - some of us our fighting being a little queasy, likely due to altitude and heat, but no one is in terrible shape.
Rusty arrived tonight safe and sound - thanking the Lord for that! Please be praying for our continued safety, health and traveling mercies as we keep serving.
I still need to jump in the shower - so grubby! Thank you for praying with us and please don't let up! We will have the opportunity to hang out with and interact with kids after church during a potluck tomorrow - please pray we are able to share the love of Jesus well.
We are sad to move on as we have so enjoyed knowing Chuck and Cindy Harper, who are such a tremendous power-couple in the Kingdom and have blessed us beyond measure. Not to mention how much we will already miss the interns whom we have adopted into our crew, AJ and Lawson! Please say a prayer for all of them as they keep doing the work of the Lord here!
DAY FIVE
SUNDAY JUNE 22nd
We got up and at'em early today. Packed out and cleaned our barracks. We prayed over the two interns we got to meet, AJ and Lawson before we loaded up and headed for church at Grace Fellowship Community Church, a Navajo congregation in Chinle, AZ. We joined them in beautiful worship and got to sing classic hymns in both English and Navajo. It was so moving as we joined in unity with our Navajo brothers and sisters in the Lord. The guest speaker, Pastor Chee was dynamic and anointed. He had 30 years of experience working with youth and he spoke so profoundly and directly into their lives. We are hoping he can come to Montana to guest preach some time soon.
Noah Key found a furry buddy he named Carlos Dimitri and we managed to get Noah away without him smuggling his new friend home. "He is the coolest dog this world has ever seen, and I fed him a turkey sandwhich," says Noah K.
After enjoying a potluck with the church membership we headed out for Canyon De Chelly where all 30 of us toured on 3 large team Jeeps for 4 hours through the canyon.
We then enjoyed fellowship and dinner at Thunderbird Lodge where we all got settled in our rooms.
We then enjoyed a beautiful time of worship on the lawn of the lodge with singing, reading of scripture, and a devo that Melissa directed with a challenge for all of us to be still, look at creation, and think on God more - outside.
Tomorrow we are driving out to Spider Rock before we go on into the Hopi reservation where we will learn and stop for lunch before heading on into Tuba City.
Please continue to pray for safety in travel, personal breakthroughs in our hearts, and ongoing health and protection as we progress. Thank you for your continued support! We need and appreciate you!
DAY SIX
MONDAY JUNE 23rd
We had a powerful Monday folks! We started with a fabulous breakfast at Thunderbird Lodge and loaded up to head for Spider Rock on the rim of the canyon.
We then headed out for the Hopi reservation where we stopped and met an AG missionary pastor, Rudy who told us his story and taught us about the extreme challenges of ministry to the Hopi, yet glorifying God in everything. We had a powerful time as God's presence showed up in a special way as we prayed for him, his wife and their adopted daughter, Grace.
As we headed out, we prayed over 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Mesas, for revival and miracle working breakthrough. We will tell the entire story upon our home report and share how the radio station at Across Nations is poised to impact this area.
We stopped at the Hopi cultural center, which was closed except for the restaurant. We changed plans and decided to eat there and have our lunch sandwiches for dinner.
We moved on, observing the landscape, listening to worship music and absorbing the abiding presence of God.
Upon arriving at our new home base in Tuba City, we all got settled into traditional (yet delightfully modernized) Navajo Hogans and set up our lodgings.
Our night-time devo was provided by our local host and native Navajo, Dean, after worship and scripture readings by our team.
There was a lot of prayer and processing after a day of serving the Lord and some unique learning opportunities in God's Kingdom.
We got to bed late and were so thankful for comfortable beds and air conditioning (not expected) in our living quarters.
Please pray for our continued safety and energy levels as we approach our final couple of days on the trip. Also please pray for smooth flights/luggage/ and travel ease for our home trek on Wednesday. Thank You!!
DAY SEVEN
TUESDAY JUNE 24th
This morning we woke up, ate and hit the ground working right away. We helped clean up a yard and do repairs at an elderly, local church member's house. Her name was Daisy. She and her young grandson, Noah, were so gracious and thankful for the assistance.
Then we headed back to our home base for a quick lunch and headed to the Across Nations radio tower property to paint the studio building, demolish two decks and build new stairs for the front and back entrances. Some of our team also helped with the beginning of repair from damage done by flooding after a levee broke.
Our team worked tirelessly in extreme heat and with excellence - I was so proud of them and their impact on the local ministry here in Tuba City.
We came home, cleaned up, enjoyed a great dinner thanks to Rusty, Sarah and Glenda and then we gathered around the fire outside for a great time of worship, scripture and a spot-on devo by Megan Brummel. We then spent time sharing highlights and impacts from the trip.
This has been a bit of a whirlwind, but we know Jesus is working on each of us and growing us both as a team and individually.
Please pray our travels to Phoenix tomorrow go well. (We will be stopping at the Flagstaff Aquaplex to swim and get showers before we keep going to the airport.) Rusty will be heading home with our big group luggage in his truck, so please pray for his safety as well.
My next update will not be posted until Thursday sometime as we get back to Bozeman past midnight tomorrow.
Thank you for all your support and prayers - it is the ONLY way we can do work like this with our young people.
DAY EIGHT
WEDNESDAY JUNE 25th
We woke up and jumped right into our pack out and cleaning of home-base facilities so we could depart smoothly. We prayed over Keith, our local leader at Across Nations, who had become a part of our team and we will truly miss him.
Jon Durgan was in charge of waking up at 6am to call the Aquaplex Community Center in Flagstaff to reserve our group swim time (you can't reserve until day-of). He learned they had no real options within our time frame due to cleaning schedule of the pool, so we had to make a big pivot in our plans. We ended up going straight to Phoenix to the Six Flags water park, Hurricane Harbor, where we spent 3 hours having fun in the cool waters on slides and rides - and my personal favorite, the lazy river! We got to refresh and clean up at the water park facilities before we all loaded up for the airport.
We arrived and turned in all 3 rentals with ease, got our boarding passes, and had time to eat dinner in the airport before we boarded our first flight home.
Everything went smoothly and we arrived at the Bozeman airport to an amazing welcome team of drivers and loved ones to get us home. I got the final thumbs up text that all the kids had made it safely home around 1:45am and then we all crashed for a good night's sleep in our own beds. Tired, but the good kind of tired after a hard week's work and service.
This Sunday is our "report" Sunday where we will be leading all 3 services (8,9:30 & 11) to share what we learned and give glory to our Savior for His help.
Thank you to ALL you prayer partners who supported us during this whole week - we could not have even considered going without you. Please be praying that the seeds God has planted in our hearts will bear mighty fruit in our lives. Please also join us in continuing to pray for Across Nations radio ministry, particulalry with a new project to reach the Hopi Nation - this is vital Kingdom work. Also, please pray for Rusty's final travel day home today since he drove back with his truck, bringing a lot of our supplies and such home with him.
May the peace, joy, and love of Jesus fill your hearts and minds today!